Fairy Tail: Round Robin
by JerrySama
Summary: Due to the recent success of the Grand Magic games, King Toma E. Fiore decides to host a second annual tournament. Familiar faces will as well as some new ones will appear. Mages from 9 guilds will participate, but only 1 can emerge victorious.
1. Chapter 1

Round Robin

Chapter 1

Gran Doma, the chairman of the Magic Council made his way through the halls of the royal palace in Crocus. The king had sent for him, and requested a meeting with him in person. But what could be so important that the king of Fiore would want to discuss with him in person. To him, it naturally must be something urgent, perhaps the uprising of a new threat to the safety of the country. This train of thought led the chairman to be rather confused when he entered the throne room and saw king Toma E. Fiore laughing with the servants in the room as if someone had just told some kind of joke. It definitely seemed less likely that anyone was in any danger now, but he still had no idea why his presence had been requested. He stepped forward and bowed politely to the king. "Your majesty. You wished to see me?"

"Ah yes! The chairman of the Magic Council himself! Thank you for coming on such short notice." the king responded with a bright smile.

"Forgive me for being abrupt, but may I ask why you have summoned me?"

"Of course, of course!" the king clapped his hands, and one of his servants approached Gran Doma, handing him a document which the king had written.

"What is this, exactly?" the chairman asked.

"Well you see, for the past seven years the Grand Magic Games have been a tremendous success in multiple different ways. And it's partially because of that success that I'd like to start co-hosting a second annual tournament along with the Magic Council. The details of the tournament are all listed there. I asked to see you so I could make this request to you and hear your response in person. What do you say?"

The council chairman took a brief moment to skim through the document, before approaching the king and shaking his hand. "We would be honored, your majesty. When will this tournament begin?"

"The official announcement will be in a week, and the tournament will begin the next day. I've prepared invitations to nine different guilds which are being sent as we speak.

A week went by, and word had quickly spread across Fiore like a wildfire. The weekly sorcerer had promoted the tournament soon after it was announced, and now virtually everyone knew about it. People came to Crocus from all areas of the country to see it, and the city was just as crowded now as it had been during the week of the Grand Magic Games. And now, everyone was gathered in the arena awaiting the arrival of the guild who would be participating. The crowd spoke amongst itself as the people waited.

"Two annual tournaments now? This should be great!"

"Does anyone know which guilds are participating?"

"I heard there's a few newer guilds that got invited to this"

The talking suddenly turned to applause as Toma E. Fiore and Gran Doma walked out to the center of the arena, each with a microphone in hand. The king was the first to speak. "It's with great honor that I welcome each of you, the citizens of Fiore! We will begin an explanation of the tournament momentarily, but first, lets bring out the nine guilds that will be participating! Black Phoenix, White Eclipse, Fairy Tail, Sabertooth, Mermaid Heel, Quatro Cerberus, Lamia Scale, Radioactive Decay, and Blue Pegasus!"

The crowd turned it's attention to the tunnel, and roared as the members of each guild made their way out, most cheering on their favorite guild.

"It feels like hardly any time's passed at all since we won the Grand Magic Games, and now we're already back again! I'm all fired up!" shouted Natsu Dragneeel. The dragon slayer had a confident grin.

"Calm down a bit, flame brain. I know you're excited, but we don't really even know anything about this tournament yet." Gray Fullbuster replied, causing Natsu's demeanor to quickly change to a more annoyed one as the dragon slayer glared at him.

"What'd you call me, Gray?! You wanna go?!"

"Bring it, Natsu!"

The two were about to start fighting right there, when Erza stepped in between them.

"That's enough, both of you. But Gray's right. There's a good chance this won't be the same as the Grand Magic Games. And we really don't know what to expect." Lucy Heartfilia, who had been standing by the group, then entered the conversation.

"Now that you mention it, the information we got really wasn't very descriptive. And in addition to that, there's a couple guilds here I haven't heard much about."

"Exactly," Erza replied with a nod "so lets be patient about this"

"What's wrong, Erza? Scared of the competition?" Reve Volver, the S-Class mage of White Eclipse called out. Erza's expression remained calm as she turned in his direction.

"Fairy Tail has no reason to fear anyone. Including you."

"Oh really? Well it doesn't matter either way. I'll still take you out and prove White Eclipse is the best guild around."

Hearing this, Bacchus shouted over from where Quatro Cerberus' mages were standing.

"Oi! If anyone's gonna take out Erza, it's me!"

"Sit down, puppy. You guys don't have a shot of winning this thing."

"The hell did you say?!" The mages of Quatro Cerberus and White Eclipse were literally having to hold back the two S-Class mages to keep them from charging at each other then and there. And the arguing very quickly spread to the other guilds as well, and now all nine guilds were shouting over each other to the point were no one could understand any of it. Gran Doma's voice then boomed out through the arena.

"ENOUGH!" The chaotic arguing immediately ceased as the mages turned their attention to him.

"Now that I have your attention, we'll begin. Before we explain the structure and rules of the tournament, we'll first reveal the main participants. In the letter sent to each guild, we asked that you list one S-Class." He looked down at a piece of paper and began to read off the names. "Erza Scarlet, Kagura Mikazuchi, Ichiya Kotobuki, Reve Volver, Mathias Cronqvist, Bacchus, Lyon Vastia, Minoru Kanemoto, and Rogue Cheney, please step forward."

The mages each did as instructed, and many of the crowd cheered for their favorite among the more known guilds, while others talked about Mathias form Black Phoenix and Minoru from Radioactive Decay.

"Who are those guys? I've never heard of them."

"Me neither, but they're supposedly S-Class, right?"

As the crowd died down, Gran Doma spoke again.

"Next, we are going to select one non S-Class member at random from each guild."

A large screen appeared behind him, and quickly began cycling through pictures of all the mages of the guilds, then stopped when nine were lined up side by side, and once again, Gran Doma listed off the names.

"Chelia Blendy, Orga Nanagear, Eve Tearm, Tsuki Mizuki, Emerita Megido, Blues, Aira Aeoulus, Gajeel Redfox, and Milliana, step forward."

As they complied, the crows again discussed the selected mages.

"Tsuki and Emerita are from Radioactive Decay and Black Phoenix, right?"

"Yeah, but I don't really know much about them. And who's that Blues guy?

"He's Quatro Cerberus' Water Dragon Slayer."

"Really? There's a few unknowns in there, but it still looks like an interesting group."

Gran Doma then spoke into his microphone again.

"These will be the main participants from each guild, though as I will explain later, others will also have a chance to be involved. Now, the 18 participants selected will be separated into two different blocks."

The screen behind him went to work again shuffling the names and pictures around until they were divided into two groups: Block A and Block B. In Block A, was Ichiya, Minoru, Erza, Chelia, Reve, Bacchus, Orga, Milliana, and Emerita. The mages listed under Block B were Gajeel, Lyon, Eve, Kagura, Aira, Rogue, Tsuki, Mathias, and Blues.

"This tournament will be in a round robin format. Each mage will fight against everyone within their respective block, for a total of 8 fights each. There will be a 30 minute time limit in each fight, just like the Grand Magic Games. However, the scoring system will be a bit different. A win will give you 2 points, a draw will give each mage 1 point, and of course no points will be awarded for a loss, meaning the maximum number of points you can get is 16. The tournament will take place over 9 days, with each mage getting 1 bye. At the end of the ninth day, the two highest scoring mages from each block will move on to the semifinals. If two mages are tied for the first or second place spot in their block at that point, the tiebreaker will go to whichever mage defeated the other during the round robin."

The people in the crowd started talking to each other again, everyone talking about the matchups that would be seen throughout the tournament. But their voices were overridden by an irritated Natsu Dragneel.

"Oi! What gives?! You said other members get to fight too! I don't wanna just sit around watching Erza and Gajeel have all the fun!"

"I was just getting to that." Gran Doma responded, before addressing the mages again.

"Each mage will be allowed to choose to turn one of their fights into a tag battle if they want, and can select any mage from their guild as a partner as long as they are not SS-Class, the guild master, or a mage already in the tournament. However, you can only elect to do this once, meaning after you've done so, you can only fight with a partner if your opponent elects to change the fight to a tag battle. Also, you can only call on a particular guild member to be a teammate once. For example, if Rogue wants to fight with a partner when he fights Gajeel, he can choose anyone than Sting, who is Sabertooth's current master. If he chooses, lets say Yukino, she and Rogue will fight Gajeel and a partner of his choice. After the fight, Yukino and whoever Gajeel selected will be ineligible for the remainder of the tournament."

After hearing the explanation, Natsu pointed at Erza and Gajeel.

"I don't really get it, but one of you better pick me as your partner!"

"You'd only get in the way, Natsu. Giheh." Gajeel responded with a grin. Natsu began to lunge at him, but Erza Grabbed him by his scarf before he could get to the Iron Dragon Slayer.

"Calm down, Natsu. I'm sure one of us will end up picking you as a partner before this thing's over."

Gran Doma sighed and shook his head as he looked over at Natsu, then continued.

"A few words of caution to all mages competing. Remember, you will be in 8 fights in the round robin. If you have any last resort tactics, I suggest you don't overuse them, or your opponents will start finding ways to counter them. Also keep in mind that any partner you use cannot be used again by you, or the other member of your guild, so be smart about who you choose, and when you choose them."

He was about to nod to the king to signal he was finished, when he remembered something.

"Oh, and I almost forgot. The winner of the tournament will receive 20 million jewel, and his or her guild will be guaranteed a team in next year's Grand Magic Games without having to compete in a preliminary round. Remember, the team that won the games only barely made it through the preliminary round last time, so this is quite a valuable prize. I'll turn things back over to his majesty now."

With a bright smile on his face, the king stepped forward and spoke into his microphone.

"There you have it! The rules and participants in the inaugural Round Robin have been announced! At this time, the mages will now receive a schedule of their fights."

While he spoke, a man walked by each of the mages who had stepped forward earlier, giving them a piece of paper with their specific schedule. Each mage read through the schedule as they got it, each giving different reactions as they read.

Reve and Aira from White Eclipse each looked confident as they read through theirs.

"This shouldn't be any problem at all. Aira, lets make sure it's you and me in the finals. That way White Eclipse shows its superiority over the others regardless of who wins. It's White Eclipse..."

"Or second place!" she responded with a bright smile, finishing the guild's signature phrase.

Neither of Radioactive Decay's mages offered any kind of reaction while looking at their shcedules. Their guild master, Avani Moton, approached them and glanced down at the paperes.

"Tsuki, Minoru, any concerns about your matches?"

"None, master" responded Tsuki.

"Same" Minoru answered shortly. However, though he didn't do anything to show it, there was one fight in particular on his schedule that was bothering him.

Over with the Quatro Cerberus mages, Blues was grinning and bursting with excitement.

"I can already tell this tournament's gonna be wild!"

"FOUR!" came the response from the others. Bacchus, however grimaced as he looked at his. Master Goldmine came over and slapped a hand on the drunken falcon's shoulder.

"Oi, what's with ya? Thought you'd be more- oh..." Looking at Bacchus' schedule, he noticed what was annoying him. "Just have some patience, Bacchus. Good things come to those who wait."

Bacchus chuckled as his lips curled into a grin. "Yeah, you're right." He then turned to face the others and threw his fist into the air. "WILD!"

"FOUR!"

Kagura noticed a worried expression on Milliana's face, then glanced at her schedule.

"It seems you have the first day off. Depending on how you use that, that can be a big advantage."

Milliana, glanced up at Kagura, clearly not fully understanding.

"You'll have an advantage in your first few fights over people who have had to fight more than you. But it also means you won't have any breaks once you get started, so you'll have to be careful. But I have confidence in you, Milliana."

Hearing her words, Milliana's frown turned into a big smile as she tightly hugged Kagura.

"Nya! Thanks, Kagura-chan! I know you'll do great too!"

An annoyed expression came over Kagura's face, but she just stood still. "Milliana..."

Natsu was arguing with Gajeel, trying to ensure that Gajeel would pick him as a tag partner in the tournament, while Erza on the other hand, had turned pale and was shaking in her armor as she stared at her schedule with a horrified expression.

"Wh-why...why me?"

Lucy noticed her unusual fear and tried to talk to her.

"Erza...? What's wrong?"

But the scarlet-haired mage didn't respond, leaving Lucy to wonder what could have scared her of all people so bad.

While the mages discussed the tournament, Toma E. Fiore again lifted his microphone and spoke.

"One more thing! Before you go, we'd like to give you all a quick look at what you'll be seeing. And so, here are the fights scheduled for Day 1 tomorrow!"

As he turned and motioned toward the screen, the fights scheduled for Day 1 appeared:

Blues vs Rogue Cheney

Mathias Cronqvist vs Eve Tearm

Reve Volver vs Chelia Blendy

Orga Nanagear vs Bacchus

Emerita Megido vs Minoru Kanemoto

Tsuki Mizuki vs Gajeel Redfox

Erza Scarlet vs Ichiya Kotobuki

and Kagura Mikazuchi vs Lyon Vastia

(Bye: Milliana and Aira Aeolus)

Lucy looked through the fights, almost gasping when she saw Erza's opponent.

"So that's why..."

Erza was now sitting on the ground, hugging her knees to her chest, and burying her face in her knees.

"I-Ichiya...Why..."

"Men, men, men~" the voice of Blue Pegasus' S-Class mage rang through Erza's ears, causing her to freeze in fear as Ichiya frolicked toward her, and stopped right in front of her.

"Erza-chan. It seems cruel fate has pitted us against one another on the battlefield! Still, as always, your exquisite perfume-"

"STAY BACK!" Erza practically screamed at him, drawing a sword and holding the point mere inches from his large nose.

"M-Men..." A large sweat drop rolled down his head before he slowly backed away.

The king's voice rang out once more through the arena.

"That's all for today, ladies and gentlemen! We look forward to seeing you all here tomorrow as we kick off the inaugural Round Robin!"

The crowd filed out of the arena, talking about all the fights they were looking forward to seeing, while the guilds each returned to the hotels they would be staying at during the remainder of the tournament, and discussed tournament amongst themselves, doing the best they could to make a strategy that would ensure they would all be ready.


	2. Chapter 2

Round Robin

Chapter 2

The first day of the tournament was here, and the crowd excitedly filed into the arena and waited for the event to begin. Fans were talking amongst themselves, debating which fight seemed the most exciting, and who they expected to win. Fairy Tail, White Eclipse, and Sabertooth seemed to be the guilds the majority picked to win, but there were some who felt some of the newer mages would have an advantage since their abilities were not as well-known. As the spectators made their way to their seats, the voices of the announcers rang through the arena as they began to discuss the tournament.

"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the inaugural Round Robin! I'm Chapati Lola, being joined once again by Yajima-san!"

"It's an honor to be here once again."

"Now lets get right to it. For those of you who missed the announcement yesterday, the eight fights scheduled for today are as follows: Blues vs Rogue Cheney, Mathias Cronqvist vs Eve Tearm, Reve Volver vs Chelia Blendy, Orga Nanagear vs Bacchus, Emerita Megido vs Minoru Kanemoto, Tsuki Mizuki vs Gajeel Redfox, Erza Scarlet vs Ichiya Kotobuki, and Kagura Mikazuchi vs Lyon Vastia. Yajima-san, which of these fights are you most looking forward to."

"Hmm...All of them seem like interesting matchups, though I suppose the opening and closing fights seem to stand out most to me. We may not know a lot about Blues, but any time two Dragon Slayers clash, it's sure to be an interesting match. And of course Kagura vs Lyon in a rematch from the Grand Magic Games will be very entertaining, especially considering their last bout ended in a draw."

"Ah, that's a good point. Personally, I'm also looking forward to seeing what happens when Erza fights Ichiya. We all know he's a rather unorthodox mage, so it should be interesting to see how Titania goes about handling this challenge."

"Indeed. And let's not forget some of the newer mages making appearances. I'm quite interested in seeing what they can do as well."

"That's true. Emerita vs Minoru should be a perfect example of what you're talking about. For those who don't know, Emerita came up short in Black Phoenix's S-Class exams, but has fought on par with, and even defeated mages of the S-Class level before. Very little is known about Radioactive Decay's Minoru Kanemoto, but he is one of their S-Classes and said to be a rather strong mage, so it should be exciting to see what happens when the two meet in the arena. Ah, it seems we're just about ready to start. The mages are making their way out to the arena now."

Along the lower level balcony, the members of all nine guilds made their way to the areas their respective areas as the crowd roared. Cheers broke out, mostly for the well known mages and guilds, but with a few for the lesser known ones mixed in as well. When they had taken their places, Mato, the pumpkin-headed mascot and referee, walked out to the center.

"Hello and welcome everyone! It's now time to begin the Round Robin! Without further adieu, we will begin the first fight now! Rogue Cheney from Sabertooth, Blues from Quatro Cerberus, please make your way to the arena floor, kabo!"

Not wasting any time, both Dragon Slayers hopped over the wall and onto the ground, then walked out to the center of the arena, stopping a few feet away from each other. Neither said a word, but there was a clear intensity surrounding both mages, and the desire to win was evident in them. Mato raised his hand, preparing to start the match.

"Are both mages ready, kabo?"

Both Blues and Rogue nodded, and Mato swung his hand in a downward motion and a gong sounded immediately after.

"Begin!"

Immediately, a blue aura flowed over Blues' body, while a black aura surrounded Rogue.

"Oh?! It's the Blue Drive and Shadow Drive! It may only be the first match of the tournament, but it seems these two dragon slayers won't be holding anything back!" said Chapati.

Back in the arena, Blues and Rogue charged, throwing a flurry of punches and kicks at each other. Due to the speed increase from the Blue and Shadow Drives, the mages' movements seemed like a blur to the majority of the spectators. Neither seemed to be hitting the other, and it appeared the two were at a stalemate, until Blues finally found an opening and grinned as he brought his fist up at Rogue's chin with an uppercut.

"Got you now, Rogue!"

But his smirk quickly changed to more of a confused expression as his fist seemed to pass right through Rogue, leaving Blues open as the Shadow Dragon Slayer covered his right arm in shadows and thrust it forward.

"Shadow Dragon's Slash!"

The attack slammed right into Blues' sternum, knocking him back several feet, though he managed to stay up on his feet.

"Tch. Those shadows are gonna be annoying to deal with..."

Where Sabertooth's mages were watching, Sting cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted out.

"You've got this, Rogue! Show this guy what happens when you mess with one of the twin dragons of Sabertooth!"

Rogue glanced back in Sting's direction, giving a slight nod before turning his attention to Blues again. With his Shadow Drive still activated, Rogue went high into the air before descending toward Quatro Cerberus' dragon slayer, again covering his arm in shadows and trying to strike him with it.

"Shadow Dragon's Crushing Fang!"

But Blues had clearly seen the attack coming and dove out of the way, and Rogue's attack collided with the ground, creating a cloud of dust around him. A light then caught Rogue's eye, and he looked down to see a blue magic circle under him.

"Too late! Water Dragon's Geyser!" shouted Blues.

Before Rogue could react, scalding hot water erupted up from the magic circle, tossing Rogue up into the air and leaving burns over several areas of his body before the Shadow Dragon Slayer fell to the ground.

"Rogue!" the Sabertooth mages yelled out in unison, worried expressions on each of their faces. Mato began running out to check on Rogue's condition.

"Rogue took a big hit and seems to be out cold! The referee may declare Blues the winner!" shouted Chapati from the announcers' booth. However, just before Mato reached him, Rogue slowly began to pull himself up to his feet.

"I'm not...done just yet..."

The crowd excitedly cheered and applauded as he stood to continue the fight. A thick black aura then surrounded Rogue, and scale-like patterns began to form on his face as he entered his Dragon Force. Blues simply grinned, then activated his own Dragon Force as the blue aura surrounded him, and the scale-like patterns formed on his skin as well.

"Heh. Wild."

"FOUR!" chimed in the rest of Quatro Cerberus.

As if each knew what the other was about to do, the two Dragon Slayers reared their heads back to prepare their next attack.

"Water Dragon's..."

"Shadow Dragon's..."

"ROAR!" they shouted at the same time, throwing their heads forward as the massive amounts of water and shadow rushed forward, colliding midway between them. The two were in a deadlock for several seconds, but Blues' attack eventually overpowered Rogues's and sent him flying back. The shadow dragon slayer was seen motionless on the ground, and Blues began panting as he tried to catch his breath. The crowd exploded into loud cheers for the spectacular fight, and Blues grinned as he turned back to face his guild mates who were watching on. But Bacchus then noticed something and tried to warn the Water Dragon Slayer.

"BLUES! BEHIND YOU!"

"Huh?" he responded with a confused expression, then started to turn around. But it was too late. While Blues' attention was turned away from Rogue, the Sabertooth mage had sunk into the shadows and snuck toward Blues. Before Blues could react, Rogue rushed up out of the ground at him, sending a torrent of shadows from his hands which wrapped around Blues and assaulted him.

"Shadow Dragon's Waxwing Flash!"

The attack cause Blues to let out a gasp in pain as he was sent into the air, then collapsed unconscious on the ground. After running over to check on him, Mato held a hand up and spoke.

"Blues is down, kabo! Rogue wins the match!"

The crowd once again roared as the exciting fight reached its conclusion, as Chapati and Yajima began to talk about it.

"What an incredible match! No doubt a perfect way to kick off this tournament, wouldn't you agree, Yajima-san?"

"Hm, indeed. It looked as if Blues had it won, but in the end it's Rogue who gets the 2 points."

"It just goes to show that the unpredictable can happen at any moment in a tournament like this."

As Blues regained consciousness, the other Quatro Cerberus mages had come over, and helped him to his feet before leading him back.

"Don't let it bother ya, Blues. It was a hell of a wild fight, and ya still got seven more." said Bacchus with a grin.

Blues nodded in response. "You're right. I can still win this thing."

"That's the spirit! Wild..."

"FOUR!" they all shouted together.

On the other side of the arena, Rogue was limping back toward the Sabertooth mages, when Sting rushed out and put Rogue's arm over his shoulders to support him while helping him walk back.

"Nice job out there! I knew you could do it!"

Rouge simply smiled and gave a slight nod. "Arigatou, Sting."

After the two mages had made their way back, Mato again stood in the center of the arena.

"The next fight is Mathias Cronqvist from Black Phoenix against Eve Tearm of Blue Pegasus! Both mages please make your way out to the arena, kabo!"

The blond S-Class mage of Black Phoenix casually walked out into the arena, smoking a cigarette as he went, and the young member of the Trimens walked out too, stopping several feet away from his opponent.

"I know we haven't met, but still, good luck." said Eve with a smile, to which Mathias simply chuckled before dropping his cigarette and stepping on it to put it out.

"Sure, you too. And try not to take the loss too hard. It's nothing personal."

Eve's expression quickly change to a more irritated one, as Mato raised his hand.

"Are both mages ready?"

Eve and Mathias nodded, and Mato brought his hand down as the gong sounded.

"Begin!"

Eve smirked and held a hand out, with the palm facing Mathias.

"Thanks to Hibiki-san, I know all about your Glyph Magic. I doubt I can overpower it, but your magic won't be much use if I don't let you use it. White Fury!"

As he said this, a snowstorm burst from the palm of his hand and rapidly approached Mathias, who stood still and watched as the snow engulfed him. But once the attack died down, Eve was surprised to see Mathias hadn't even budged from where he was standing, and his lips had curled into a wide grin.

"If I'd known it was supposed to snow today I would've brought a coat. Oh well. I guess I'll just have to manage."

Eve grunted in frustration and began to shoot another burst of snow out of his palm, when Mathias used a spell of his own.

"Ignis."

As he uttered the word, a fireball launched forward at Eve, melting all the snow in its path, then exploded as it collided with the Blue Pegasus mage. When the smoke cleared, Eve was seen on his hands and knees, his clothes torn in several places, and limbs shaking. From where Eve's guild mates were, Hibiki shouted out in concern for his teammate.

"Eve! Hang in there!"

The announcers took a moment to comment on the attack.

"That attack definitely seems to have put Eve on the ropes, but what exactly was that, Yajima-san?"

"Mathias' Glyph Magic utilizes tattoos, using them to summon forth whatever it symbolizes, in this case, a fireball. It's a rare magic, but extremely versatile."

"Eh? It sounds bad for Eve. Lets see how he responds."

Grunting in pain as he moved, again Eve extended his palm forward.

"Blizzard!"

Another snow storm emerged, but this one was much thicker, and encompassed the majority of the area. For the first time in the fight, Mathias' grin disappeared as he crouched down a bit and put his arms up to protect his face from the snow.

"How annoying. Do you really think something like this can-"

He was interrupted by Eve's fist, which came seemingly from out of nowhere and collided with the side of Mathias' head, knocking him down as the announcers chimed in.

"Eve used his magic to blind Mathias so he could move in for close combat! But was it enough?!"

"Hm, it's certainly not what you'd expect from Eve. But he is a former Rune Knight after all, so he shouldn't be underestimated."

The crowd cheered at the sign of a possible upset, but none of the Black Phoenix mages said anything or showed any concern. The reason why became clear when Mathias stood back up, rubbing his head, though he didn't seem to be very effected by the hit.

"Heh. You got me. But I think it's about time we ended this. Arma Lupus."

As the words were spoken, Mathias' body transformed into that of a werewolf, causing surprised expressions to appear on the faces of many who saw it, including Eve. The Trimens member was too slow to react as Mathias quickly dashed forward, slamming a paw into Eve's face, the impact knocking him off his feet and sending him backward. Shortly after he hit the ground, Mato ran over to check on him. Eve was out cold, with large cuts on his face left form Mathias' attack.

"Eve is down! Mathias wins the battle!"

The crowd applauded the two mages as Mathias reverted back to his normal form and began walking back to his fellow guild members. Black Phoenix's guild master, Anri Varsuna smiled and pat him on the shoulder.

"Well done, Mathias! Looks like you won't have to spend the night in the pocket dimension after all!" The words drew strange looks from people nearby who were unfamiliar with the wild card guild master, though Mathias just chuckled and lit another cigarette.

"Thanks. I appreciate it."

Out in the arena, Ren Akatsuki and Hibiki Lates rushed out to help Eve up, who was just now regaining consciousness.

"S-sorry, Hibiki-san. Even though you told me about his magic, I wasn't able to win."

"Hey, forget about that. You did your best, that's all that matters." Hibiki responded with a bright smile, before Ren spoke too.

"Besides, we need to focus on cheering Ichiya-senpai on in his fight later, not that he'll need the help of course."

Eve smiled and nodded as they made their way off the arena floor.

While they were walking off, the announcers spoke again.

"We've had two fights now in the inaugural Round Robin! Thus far, Rogue Cheney and Mathias Cronqvist lead with two points, but with many more fights to come, it'll be interesting to see what the scores look like at the end of Day 1!"

"Hm, indeed. The first day is pivotal for establishing momentum for the rest of the tournament. What we've seen so far has been interesting, and there's sure to be many more such moments as the tournament progresses."


	3. Chapter 3

Round Robin

Ch. 3

"Ladies and gentlemen, it's been a wonderful start to the inaugural Round Robin thus far, and we still have several fights left to go on the first day. Rogue Cheney of Sabertooth and Mathias Cronqvist of Black Phoenix were the first to get on the scoreboard, and are tied at two points each!" Chapati said, his microphone carrying his voice through the arena as Yajima responded.

"Yes, both fights were interesting, though I believe we have yet to see anyone from Block A compete yet, correct?"

"Ah yes. However, the next three fights today will all be from Block A. Reve Volver vs Chelia Blendy, Orga Nanagear vs Bacchus, and Emerita Megido vs Minoru Kanemoto. What are your thoughts about these matchups, Yajima-san?"

"Hmm...once again, all of them seem interesting, though it seems to me Emerita vs Minoru is the only one without a clear favorite."

"We mentioned earlier that little is neither of them are very well known, so it should be exciting to see what they can do. Ah, here comes Mato-san, which means it's time to resume the tournament matches."

Mato now stood out in the center of the arena as he called out.

"Reve Volver of White Eclipe, and Chelia Blendy from Lamia Scale! Please step forward, kabo!"

White Eclipse's Guns Requip mage casually walked out to the center of the arena, with his hands in his pockets as he went. The young female God Slayer of Lamia Scale jogged out, waving to the crowd with a bright smile, before tripping and falling flat on her face halfway out. Reve just chuckled and shook his head at the sight.

"Really? /This/ is my opponent? What a joke."

"H-huh...?" Chelia blinked and looked at Reve with a confused expression as she stood up.

"I didn't stutter. God Slayer or not, you're just a kid. You should withdraw from the tournament before you get yourself hurt."

"Hey! Don't underestimate me! Just because I'm small doesn't mean I can't fight!" she responded, pouting as she spoke.

"Whatever. Lets just get this over with." With that, he nodded toward Mato, signaling him to start the match.

"Chelia, are you ready too, kabo?" the mascot asked. She nodded, her expression turning to a more serious determined one, and Mato brought his hand down as the gong sounded.

"Begin!"

Somewhat to Chelia's surprise, Reve didn't immediately attack.

"It's White Eclipse tradition to allow the weaker opponent the first attack." he explained, irritating the young God Slayer.

"Fine! You asked for it!"

Chelia rapidly sprinted forward, and when she was close to Reve, she rotated her torso and extended her arms, summoning a strong, spiraling current of black wind.

"Sky God's Dance!"

She grinned as she watched the winds lift Reve high into the air, though it was still too early to know how much damage her attack had done.

While his body was descending, Reve turned in the air to face Chelia, having already requipped a pistol in his right hand. A small magic circle then appeared behind his hand, using his Quickdraw technique to rapidly propel it forward to aim at Chelia, then fired a blast of raw magic energy directly at her. Unable to react in time, she merely put her arms up in an attempt to shield herself, but was sent rolling after the blast connected with full force. Reve landed on his feet, twirling the pistol around his finger.

"Heh. Is that all?"

But to his surprise, Chelia smirked as she stood back up, with no visible injuries.

"Of course not! As long as I have the Sky God's Healing Spell, I can keep fighting back no matter what you do!"

"Is that right? We'll see about that."

His pistol disappeared as he then requipped a sawn off shotgun into each of his hands. He aimed one at Chelia and pulled the trigger, but this time she was ready for it, and used the wind to speed her movement as she glided around the large blast that approached her. Hoping she could move fast enough to catch him off guard, Chelia dashed around to his side. And for a moment it seemed as though she had succeeded, as Reve hadn't turned to aim at her again. Taking the opening, Chelia rushed forward and a was about to attack him from his blind side. But when she was close, her eyes widened she noticed the barrel of the second shotgun pointing at her from right under Reve's arm. But it was too late. Reve pulled the trigger, and the large blast launched Chelia back once again. And this time, it appeared the impact had instantly knocked her out.

As Mato ran over to check on her, Reve chuckled and walked away.

"Too easy. It's White Eclipse, or se-"

"REVE, LOOK OUT!" Luke Cloud, another White Eclipse mage shouted form the stands, cutting Reve off.

Reve quickly spun around, only for a vortex of black wind send him hurling back, slamming him into the wall just under where his guild mates were watching, leaving a large crater there. Back in the center of the arena, Chelia was panting, and barely able to stand, as Reve fell from the crater in the wall, landing unconscious on the ground. Mato immediately ran over to check on Reve, then held up a hand.

"Reve is down, kabo! Chelia Blendi wins!"

Stunned. Baffled. Shocked. None of these words could bring any justice to the reactions of everyone in the arena. Every mage and spectator's jaw had dropped, and for a while, no one could say a word. Even the announcers were speechless. Finally, the Lamia Scale mages erupted in cheers, which soon began to spread throughout the entire crowd. Chelia smiled, but then lost consciousness and collapsed on the ground. Lyon, Jura, Toby, and Yuuka all rushed out to help her and carried her off to the infirmary.

"Why's she so hurt? Shouldn't her healing spell have prevented this?" asked Yuuka.

"Normally, yes. I suppose the trauma to her head made it difficult for her to focus on healing herself. For her to continue fighting in spite of that is truly impressive." replied Jura.

"Just rest now, Chelia. You've earned it." Lyon said as they went.

Reve regained consciousness and stood up, and was seething in anger once he realized what had happened. As he made his way back over to the other guild members, no one said anything until the Vector Mage, Tayakata put her hand on his shoulder.

"Just forget about it. It was a fluke and everyone knows it."

"...You're right. Let her have her fifteen minutes of fame. It won't matter. White Eclipse is still gonna win this tournament." he said, seeming to calm down a bit. And the other members smiled confidently and nodded in agreement.

"Because it's White Eclipse..."

"Or second place!" they all responded in unison.

Back in the announcers' booth, Chapati finally commented on the situation.

"Wow! What a stunning upset! I don't think anyone here saw that coming! Before we move on to the next fight, lets take a look and see what exactly happened."

On the screen, a reply was shown of the Sky God's Bellow that Chelia had ambushed Reve with. And in slow motion, it showed that as Reve hit the wall, his head had snapped backward and slammed into it.

"Oh?! I can't say for sure, but it looks like it wasn't Chelia's spell that knocked him out, but the impact of his head whiplashing into the wall!"

"It does look that way." Yajima replied. "It's amazing to think that if his body had just turned at a slightly different angle when the attack hit, the outcome of the entire fight might've been different."

"It really is! But in the end, it's Chelia Blendi who takes the first two points in Block A. Now with two more fights to come, who else will be among the first to put up some points? Lets find out as we start our next match!"

Mato stood in the arena to bring out the next competitors.

"Orga Nanagear of Sabertooth, and Bacchus of Quatro Cerberus, please step forward!"

"Heh. Looks like I'm finally up." Bacchus said with a grin as he hopped over the wall and made his way out to the arena.

At the same time, the large, green-haired God Slayer from Sabertooth began to calmly walk out, stopping several feet away from Bacchus.

"Are both mages ready, kabo?" asked Mato, to which both responded with a silent nod, and the gong sounded.

"Begin now!"

Not wasting any time, Bacchus dashed straight at Orga, focusing his magic energy into the palms of his hands as he swung a flurry of palm strikes at the large man's head and torso. The suddenness caught Orga off guard, and he brought his arms up to parry as many of the strikes as possible, while also swaying out of the way of several. However, Bacchus eventually found an opening in the God Slayer's defense and brought his palm up, slamming it under Orga's chin and knocking him back several feet. Bacchus then grinned and crouched into his signature fighting stance.

"Wild..."

"FOUR!" the other Quatro Cerberus mages shouted out.

But Orga quickly stood back up and outstretched his arms toward Bacchus, with his right palm several inches above the left as a small ball of black lightning began to charge.

"120mm Black Lightning Canon!"

As he said this, the ball of lightning turned into more of a beam which rapidly approached Bacchus. The Drunken Falcon's eyes widened in surprise at seeing the attack, but managed to lean back just far enough for it to sail over him, crashing into the wall behind him instead as Bacchus stood straight again.

"Oi, that was clo-"

He was cut off when Orga's fist crashed into his face, knocking him back in a manner similar to the way Bacchus had done to Orga a moment ago. And just like Orga, Bacchus quickly got to his feet, not giving his opponent a chance to press his attack. The two stared each other down for a moment, then charged forward. Bacchus threw another intense series of magic infused palm strikes, while Orga covered his fists and legs with lightning, throwing strong punches and kicks. Despite both taking several big hits, neither seemed to gain an advantage, nor did either let up on their assault. Finally, one of Bacchus' palm strikes connected with a lightning-covered punch from Orga, and the collision of magic energy resulted in an explosion that sent both men flying backwards. Each were now gasping for air as they struggled to their feet, when out of the corner of his eye, Bacchus noticed his gourd lying on the ground, and realized he must've dropped it at some point during that last exchange of attacks. He grinned, knowing that drinking from it would give him the advantage, and ran to pick up the gourd. But Orga had noticed this too, and wasn't about to let that happen. Bringing an arm forward, Orga shouted.

"Black Lightning Sphere!"

Right as Bacchus was reaching for the gourd, a large sphere of black lightning appeared around him, and an agonized shout could be heard from within the sphere as Bacchus was electrocuted. When the attack died down, Bacchus was seen lying motionless next to his now-destroyed gourd. Mato went to check on Bacchus, then held a hand up to signal the end of the fight.

"Bacchus is down! Orga wins!"

The Sabertooth fans erupted out of their seats as they cheered for the God Slayer, who grinned as he tried to catch his breath.

"Oi...Give me a microphone."

"Eh?...O-of course, kabo!" Mato rushed off, and quickly returned with a microphone, handing it to Orga. Everyone in the crowd listened intently, knowing what what was coming next. Orga cleared his throat, then began to sing.

"Sabertooth is number one!~"

The crowd cheered as he sang, though most of the mages were annoyed by it. When he was finally done, he handed the microphone back and limped back to Sabertooth's area in the stands.

Having regained consciousness, Bacchus grinned as he made his way back over to Quatro Cerberus' section, despite having lost the fight.

"You seem to be taking this rather well, Bacchus." said Master Goldmine, who was standing with the other members.

"Ya win some, ya lose some. It was a wild fight though. Oi, any chance you could get me another gourd before my next fight?"

"Way ahead of you." Goldmine chuckled and tossed a new gourd over to Bacchus. "Figured having some extras might come in handy."

"Heh. Wild!"

"FOUR!" the rest shouted in unison.

Again Mato stood in the center of the arena.

"Our next fight is Emerita Megido from Black Phoenix vs Radioactive Decay's Minoru Kanemoto! Both mages please enter the arena now!"

The two mages walked out and stood toe to toe, and the crowd began to talk among itself as everyone noticed the obvious size difference between them, as Minoru stood nearly a foot taller than her. Looking down at her, the S-Class mage from Radioactive Decay wore his usual serious expression.

"Good luck, Emerita."

"Just 'Rita' is fine, and keep your 'luck' for yourself. I'll do just fine without it."

"Hmph."

As the two backed up to create some distance between them, the announcers spoke again.  
"Before this next one starts, lets talk about these two mages really quick. Emerita, or Rita, is a former professor who uses Scroll Magic. And as we said before, despite her small build, she is rather powerful, and has fought on par with S-Class mages before."

"Hm, and lets not forget about her opponent. We don't know much about Minoru other than that he's one of his guild's S-Class mages and uses a variation of Solid Script magic. So it will be interesting to see the full extent of his power in this tournament as well."

"Are both mages ready, kabo?" Mato asked.

"Of course I am." Rita answered confidently, while Minoru gave a silent nod.

"Very well. Begin!" Mato shouted as the gong rang.

The second the match began, Rita took off in a sprint toward Minoru. But the Solid Script mage was quick to react, kneeling and writing the word "water" on the ground with his index finger. His magic then turned the word into a large puddle of water in front of him, which caused Rita to slip and fall as she ran through it. The crowd laughed, and Rita's expression quickly turned to a very irritated one as she looked up at Minoru.

"You think this is some kind of joke?"

"You don't see me laughing do you?" In fact, Minoru's expression hadn't changed at all since he'd walked out to the arena. And now, he was writing the words "Lightning Storm" in the air with his index finger. Sensing the danger she was in, Rita quickly sprang away from the puddle of water, just as a magic circle opened in front of Minoru, releasing several bolts of lightning where she had just been.

"Tch. Looks like close combat isn't an option just yet. But at least he gave me something to work with." she said to herself as she took our her scroll and began to recite one of it's spells.

"Grant them thy undefiled purity, Splash!"

Using the water from Minoru's previous spell, Rita's caused the water to erupt and toss Minoru into the air. The water then formed around him, and rushed back down, slamming him into the ground, leaving a crater from the impact of the fall. A small grin formed on Rita's lips, but soon disappeared when Minoru pulled himself back to his feet with seemingly little effort. He leaned his head back and forth from left to right, popping his neck. And if anything had changed about him as a result of Rita's attack, it's that he was annoyed now. Rita could tell by this point that basic spells likely wouldn't be strong enough to win this battle, and decided to try a more powerful one, knowing it would use more magic energy in the process, hoping it would either do some serious damage or give her an opening to try something else. So again she recited from the scroll.

"Come forth, O sparks of the skies! Bring judgement down on thy sinners! Lightning Reign!"

In a manner similar to Minoru's lightning-based spell, bolts of lightning began raining down toward him from the sky. Realizing what was about to happen a moment before the spell activated, Minoru sprinted away as each bolt of lightning landed close behind him, leading him right toward Rita. The Scroll mage grinned, seeing a chance to perhaps catch him off guard, and ran toward him. When she was close, she leapt in the air and spun her body around, swinging a round house kick at his head. But to her surprise, Minoru caught her leg in his hands, then turned and through her in the direction of the lightning created by her own spell. Luckily for her however, the spell had finished right as he threw her, and she was able to flip in the air and land on her feet, springing back toward him once again. But once again, Minoru knelt down as she charged and wrote in the ground. Seeing this, Rita stopped a few feet from him.

"Oh no. I'm not falling for that again."

But instead of what she was expecting, a wall made of the dirt and stones in the ground rose between them, and she backed up for a moment to rethink her strategy, unsure of what Minoru was planning. On the other side of the wall, Minoru wrote the word "boulder" on the wall with his index finger, then balled his hand into a fist and punched the wall, causing a large section of it to form into a boulder and launch at Rita. Too surprised to react in time, it crashed right into her, launching her backward. While she was still down, Minoru decided to press the attack, writing "War Hammer" in the air with his finger. His magic transformed the word into a large, two-sided hammer, the handle being almost as tall as Minoru. Lunging toward her, he shouted as he brought the hammer down, looking to end the fight.

However, at the last moment, Rita looked up and saw what was coming, and just barely managed to roll out of the way. The hammer hit the ground, missing her, but creating a massive shockwave from the impact which also destroyed much of the ground around him.

Rita saw an opening, and jumped onto Minoru's back, wrapping her arms around his neck in a tight sleeper hold, and locking her legs around his waist to keep from falling off. The hammer slipped out of his hands as he stumbled backward, and tried to pry her arms off his neck, but to no avail. Due to the lack of oxygen his vision was starting to go black, and he started to lose his balance as he eventually fell to a knee.

His body started to go limp, on the verge of passing out, when suddenly he stood back up, with her still on his back. Gritting his teeth as he fought to stay conscious, he reached both his hands back, each grabbing a fistful of Rita's hair. Then in one quick movement, he shouted out and flipped her over his back, slamming her into the ground as hard as he could. Minoru staggered back before falling to a knee again, placing a hand over his neck as he coughed violently, trying to catch his breath.

While Minoru was recovering, Mato went over to check on Rita, who hadn't moved since being thrown into the ground. And just as he was about to end the fight, Rita reached out and grabbed Mato's ankle.

"D-don't even...think about it."

Minoru's eyes widened in borderline shock as she slowly began to pull herself up. The crowd rose to its feet and applauded both mages, knowing they were seeing an instant classic, despite most having never seen either mage before today.

Both mages were deep in thought as they tried to plan out their next move. For Minoru, it was an internal debate as to whether to use his strongest technique now, or wait and use it in one of the later fights. If he used it now, he was certain he'd get the win, but the element of surprise would be lost if he ever wanted to use it later on. For Rita, it was a question of whether she should use a healing spell she knew, or try going for the win now. Healing herself could potentially give her an advantage, but she knew by now they must be close to reaching the time limit, and it seemed unlikely Minoru would just et her use the spell anyway.

Both mages decided on a course of action, but Rita was the first to act.

"Second Origin, activate." she muttered under her breath, unlocking a second core of magic energy in her, before reciting the incantation for her strongest spell.

"O' power that lies in the root of all creation, o' memory inscribed in ages past, hear my call and arise before me..."

Neither Minoru, nor anyone else in the arena had heard her activating her Second Origin, though Minoru had a gut feeling this spell would be as strong as, if not stronger than, any spell she'd used to this point. So he waited until right before the spell would be activated before writing "hole" in the ground with his finger. His magic then opened a hole about ten feet deep, and he fell in, landing on his feet. Sighing in relief, he looked up, expecting to see Rita's spell pass over the hole. But he was shocked when instead, he saw Rita her self in the air right above the hole, scroll in hand.

"ANCIENT CATASTROPHE!" she shouted at the top of her lungs. Seven large orbs, each made of a different element, were launched down toward Minoru, who had no path of retreat, and no effective defense at this point. All he could do is hold his arms up to shield himself as the orbs converged on him, resulting in a massive explosion.

Rita landed next to the hole in the ground, falling to her hands and knees, panting as she looked on to see if her attack had been enough. Mato stood at the edge as well, looking on to see if the fight was over. When the smoke cleared, Minoru was seen lying unconscious at the bottom of the hole, and Mato held his hand up.

"Minoru is down, kabo! Rita wins!"

Again the crowd, and the other mages from Black Phoenix erupted into thunderous cheers for both mages for putting on an amazing fight, as the announcers discussed the fight.

"Amazing! We knew this would be an interesting bout, but who would've guessed it would turn out like this?!"

"Indeed." Yajima replied. "Both mages demonstrated tremendous power, but it came down to a chess match, and Rita's strategy proved to be the more effective."

"Yes, it seems Minoru sealed his defeat when he went into that hole, and boxed himself in. But Rita-san is clearly very intelligent to have seen through Minoru's strategy. It'll be exciting to see them as they continue to compete in the Round Robin!"

Rita smiled, though she was still tired and in pain from the fight, while at the bottom of the hole, Minoru groaned and rubbed his head as he sat up.

"Deciding to hold your last resort technique back until later, huh? Not that I'm complaining. I'll gladly take the points." Rita said, grinning down at the Solid Script mage.

"Tch. Whatever. One loss won't kill my chances." he responded as he climbed up out of the hole.

"It could if you're not careful. Either way, good fight, Minoru."

Once he was out of the hole, she extended her right hand toward him, and the crows applauded them once again as he shook her hand.

"A good display of sportsmanship after an excellent contest." Yajima said from the announcers'. "I doubt we'll see a lot of moments like this throughout the tournament, so it's good to see some respect between two mages from opposing guilds."

The two then limped back to their guilds' respective areas. The guild master of Radioactive Decay as well as Minoru's girlfriend, Avani Moton, ran over to him and embraced him in a tight hug before lightly kissing his cheek.

"I'm sorry, Minoru-kun. But I'm sure you'll win the next one."

"I'll do my best, Avani." he replied with a slight smile.

Rita had almost made it back to her guildmates, when her exhaustion and injuries finally became too much, and she collapsed on the ground, drawing a lot of worried gasps from the crowd. Lucina, another Black Phoenix mage as well a former student of Rita's, ran out to help her.

"Are you alright?!"

Rita's eyes opened slightly, and she grinned despite her obvious pain.

"Of course. Nothing I can't handle. But still, you wouldn't mind helping me to the infirmary, would you?"

"Lucina smiled and nodded before putting Rita's arm over her shoulders, supporting her as she helped her former teacher stand and walk back to the infirmary."

"Now lets take a moment to look at the updated scoreboard. In Block B, Rogue Cheney and Mathias Cronqvist each won their fights, and are currently tied at two points each. And now, after three matches from Block A, Chelia Blendy, Orga Nanagear, and Emerita Megido lead the block, each with two points. However, with three more fights to go in Day 1, it'll be interesting to see what the score looks like after our last fight."


	4. Chapter 4

Round Robin

Ch. 4

"It's certainly been exciting here at the inaugural Round Robin, and we're now nearing the end of today's matches. Yajima-san, what are your thoughts?"

"Hmm...The matches we've seen so far have all been interesting and exciting in different ways. And of the remaining matches for today...I have to say Lyon vs Kagura peaks my interest the most."

"I can't help but agree, Yajima-san! But lets not overlook the other matches. Tsuki Mizuki will be looking to get a win for her guild to avenge Minoru's close loss, while Gajeel will certainly have the crowd on his side as he tries to get Fairy Tail on the scoreboard! And Erza vs Ichiya will be a battle between two S-Class mages, and even though we've seen both mages several times before, I still don't think anyone knows what to expect from this one. Well, without further delay, lets continue the matches!"

Mato ran out to the center of the arena before shouting into his microphone.

"Fairy Tail's Gajeel Redfox and Tsuki Mizuki of Radioactive Decay, please make your way out now!"

"Giheh. Looks like I'm up." Gajeel said with a grin and the crowd roared with cheers for the Iron Dragon Slayer as he walked out. Tsuki silently walked out and stood a few feet in front of him, her face practically emotionless.

"Are both mages ready, kabo?" Mato asked, looking back and forth at both of them.

Gajeel nodded and started to crouch into a fighting stance, but Tsuki held a hand up.

"Wait. I want to use my tag partner now."

The crowd immediately began buzzing once again as the announcers chimed in to comment.

"Oh?! It looks like we're about to have our first tag battle of the tournament! But I wonder if this is smart on Tsuki's part. After this point she won't be able to call on a partner again unless her opponent decides to first, correct?"

"Indeed." Yajima responded. "Since Gajeel wasn't the one who called for his partner first, he will still be able to do so later if he wants. But Tsuki will most likely have to fend for herself for all of her fights after this. So for her sake I hope she makes this count."

Back in the arena, Mato spoke into the microphone again.

"Tsuki Mizuki has elected to turn this fight into a tag battle, kabo! Tsuki, who do you select as your partner?"

The black-haired girl looked back at her guild members before answering.

"Iris Hale."

With Iris being just as unfamiliar with the crowd as the rest of her guildmates, the blue-haired girl quietly walked out and stood next to Tsuki, not saying a word, and her face just as expressionless as Tsuki's.

"Alright! Gajeel, who will your partner be?"

"Tch. Wasn't expecting this. Well then..."

He looked back at the other Fairy Tail mages and scanned over them. Natsu was trying to climb over the wall while several of his guildmates held him back.

"Oi! Gajeel! You better pick me or I'll kick your ass!"

"Natsu, calm down and just let him pick." Erza said, and Natsu reluctantly complied.

After thinking it over for a minute, Gajeel grinned and pointed toward the Fairy Tail mages.

"I choose...Juvia Lockser!"

The crowd was clearly surprised by the choice, but let out loud cheers as she went made her way out.

"An interesting choice by Gajeel, and now it seems this tag battle will feature a reunion of former Phantom Lord teammates!" Chapati said as Juvia stood next to Gajeel.

"Juvia is happy to team with Gajeel-san again." she said to her partner. Then before he could say anything in response, she turned and waved frantically back toward Fairy Tail's members. "Gray-sama! Juvia dedicates this fight to you! Please cheer for Juvia!"

Gray didn't respond, except for an awkward expression that came over his face.

Mato once again looked at both sides.

"Are both teams ready, kabo?"

All four mages nodded, and the gong sounded as Mato raised his hand.

"Begin!"

The second the gong sounded, Iris morphed into a lightning bolt and rushed straight toward Gajeel and Juvia, quickly zig-zagging back and forth as she went to confuse them as to who she was going after. As she got near, both jumped to the side in opposite directions, simply letting her pass between them. But as Gajeel stood, he was surprised to see Tsuki right in front of him, swinging a mace made of blood right at him, which struck him in his cheek and knocked him back.

"Damn. Looks like these two make a pretty good team." Gajeel said as he rubbed his cheek with his hand. "Blood Magic and Lightning Magic, huh? This'll be interesting."

Off to the side, Juvia stood several feet from Iris, and held her hand up, with her palm facing the Lightning Mage.

"Water Lock!"

A large sphere of water formed around Iris, lifting her slightly into the air and attempting to cut off her oxygen. But she suddenly gathered lightning around her body before sending it in all directions, dispersing the water. And as she landed, Iris channeled her magic into her right foot, sending a wave electricity which quickly traveled through the puddles of water on the ground, causing Juvia to scream in pain as it electrocuted her.

Hearing his partner's scream, Gajeel rushed over to Juvia, knowing this wouldn't end well if things kept up this way.

"Lets switch, Juvia! I'll take this one, you get the Blood Mage!"

"You think that'll change anything?!" Tsuki shouted as she charged at Juvia, her mace having transformed into a sword now. But as she swung the sword, her eyes widened in surprise when it passed right through the Water Mage.

"Physical attacks won't work against Juvia. Water Force!"

Juvia thrust her palm forward, gathering a large amount of water in front of Tsuki before slamming it into her, sending her flying back.

"Giheh! Now we're getting the hang of this!" Gajeel said with a grin as his iron scales formed over his body.

Iris again morphed into a lightning bolt and began flying all around Gajeel, trying to confuse him before coming down at him from above.

"Not so fast. Iron Dragon's Club!"

Pointing his fist up, Gajee's arm then turned into an iron club which shot up and slammed into Iris' face, launching her through the air, and the Lightning Mage dropped to the ground a moment later.

As Tsuki stood up, she grunted and created a bow and arrow made of blood. She fired the arrow, only for it to pass through Juvia as the sword had.

"It doesn't matter if you use short or long ranged attacks. Your magic can't hurt Juvia. This next attack is for Gray-sama! Wings of Love!"

Juvia swung her arms, sending a large whirlpool which once again knocked Tsuki back several feet. She then turned to look at her guildmates, her eyes now looking like big pink hearts.

"Gray-sama! Were you watching?"

Gray had been watching, but didn't reply, and had an awkward look on his face.

Standing in front of an injured Iris Hale, Gajeel grinned as he held his arm out to the side.

"Iron Dragon's Sword."

The arm then turned into a large, jagged blade. But Iris wasn't intimidated. She held her arms up, gathering lightning in her hands, then threw them forward.

"Homing Bolt!"

The bolt of lightning went forward with incredible speed, though having watched her prepare the attack, Gajeel was able to sidestep it with ease. However, Gajeel then realized that the bolt was headed right for Juvia, who was staring up at the stands.

"Juvia! Look out!"

But it was far too late. Before his words even registered with her, the bolt of lightning hit it's mark with full force, electrocuting Juvia again as well as launching her sideways into the wall of the arena, and she collapsed to the ground in a dazed state.

"Juvia!" Gajeel shouted out, then ran over to try to help his partner. But Tsuki moved in front of him, still holding the sword, as well as a newly formed axe.

"Outta the way!" he shouted, swinging his Iron Dragon's sword down at Tsuki, who parried by bringing both her weapons up over her head, the two now in a deadlock. Seeing her chance, Iris held her hands together as if she were praying, and an electric charge surged around them. As she pulled her hands apart, a ball of lightning formed in the space between her hands. The lightning mage looked at Tsuki, who smirked and gave a nod, signaling her partner to attack. Iris nodded back and thrust her hands forward, and the ball of lightning shot forward in the form of a powerful bolt. Right at the last second, Tsuki lowered her weapons and dove out of the way. Iris' attack then hit right in the center of Gajeel's back launching him right into Juvia, who had only just now made it back to her feet, and both crashed into the wall before falling unconscious on the ground.

Mato ran over to check on them before raising a hand.

"Juvia and Gajeel are down! Tsuki and Iris win the battle!"

As the crowd cheered, neither Tsuki or Iris said a word, but simply grinned and nodded to each other before heading back to Radioactive Decay's section in the stands.

When the Fairy Tail mages regained consciousness, Gajeel grimaced as he walked back, and Juvia frowned and hung her head as she followed close behind. When they made it back to their guild's section, Gray smiled and put a hand on Juvia's shoulder.

"It's alright, Juvia. You did your best."

"G-Gray-sama...!" she responded as she looked at him, her eyes again turning to pink hearts.

"Gajeel! Why didn't you pick me?! We would've won that easy!" Natsu shouted at Gajeel.

"Shut it, Natsu! You couldn't have done any better and you know it!"

"Huh?! You wanna go?!" Natsu shouted back, and the members of Fairy Tail now frantically fought to keep Natsu and Gajeel from killing each other.

Once all four mages had left, Mato again took the microphone.

"It's time for our next fight! Erza Scarlet from Fairy Tail, and Ichiya Kotobuki of Blue Pegasus, please step forward, kabo!"

The short, orange-haired S-Class mage of Blue Pegasus casually walked out into the arena. Erza, on the other hand, was shaking in her armor, and took a great deal of mental effort just to move forward as she walked out, stopping several feet away form Ichiya.

"Erza-chan! Your perfume is as stunning as always! Men.~" Ichiya said, striking a weird pose as sparkles appeared all around him. Erza's only response was to hide behind Mato.

"M-make it go away!" she said, and the crowd laughed in response, thinking she was just joking.

Mato stepped away from Erza and looked at both mages.

"Are you ready, kabo?"

Ichiya nodded, but Erza's eye just twitched as she looked at him with a weird expression. But the gong sounded nonetheless.

"Begin the match!"

Immediately, Ichiya leapt "gracefully" through the air toward the scarlet-haired mage.

"Erza-chan, you-" his voice cut off as an armor-clad fist slammed into the center of his face and drove him straight to the ground, the impact leaving a crater under Ichiya's body. Erza didn't give him even a second to recover, and began practically screaming as she rapidly rained punches down on the Blue Pegasus mage's face. After nearly a minute of this, Erza stepped back, panting slightly as she glared at Mato.

"End the fight, now!"

He flinched at the frightening tone in her voice, and was about to go check on Ichiya, but the Perfume Mage shakily stood to his feet, his face severely battered and bruised from the beating he just endured.

"Indeed, the perfume of your beauty and strength make a wonderful combination. But for the sake of Blue Pegasus, I must not give up, even against you, my honey."

Ichiya then took the vile for his Power Perfume from his jacket and removed the cork, and as he inhaled the perfume, the size of his muscles drastically increased. When the transformation was finished, the short mage of Blue Pegasus was now much larger than Erza. As Ichiya walked toward her, Erza's body began to glow with the activation of her well-known Requip magic. When the light died down, Erza was now in her Black Wing Armor, and flew up into the air. At first it seemed as though she was going to try beating him with an aerial offense. However, after it then became clear that she had no idea of going anywhere near Ichiya, and was trying to fly away from the arena.

"I cannot allow your perfume to elude me this time, MEN!~" Ichiya shouted, then jumped, amazing all who watched as he caught up to her, and managed to grab one of her legs with his hand before falling back to the arena floor with her. As soon as he landed, he pulled Erza toward him, and wrapped his massive arms around her in a tight hug.

"Let go of me!" Erza shouted as she flailed and tried desperately to get away from him, but with her arms being stuck by her sides, she couldn't budge him.

"My honey, it's unfortunate that fate has forced us to be opponents on the battlefield, but..." his voice trailed off, before stopping altogether as he suddenly realized that Erza had stopped moving. Her head hung to the side, her eyes had shut, and her limbs were motionless. Ichiya hugging her had sent Erza into such an intense state of panic that she had literally passed out in his arms. A mixture of confusion and shock was in the face of Ichiya, as well as all who watched from the stands. Mato ran over to them, and with Erza still in Ichiya's grasp, he lifted one of her arms, only for it to fall limply back by her side when he let go.

"E-Erza is down! Ichiya wins!"

The arena wen silent as no one knew how to react at first. Even Ichiya couldn't believe what had happened.

"M-Men...?"

Slowly, the crowd started to applaud, though still no one could get over how bizarre the match had been.

Unsure of what else he should do, Ichiya carried Erza to her guild mates before heading back to Blue Pegasus' section, where Eve, Ren, and Hibiki were already smiling and posing.

"Excellent job, Ichiya-sensei! We knew you could do it!" they said in unison. Hearing their praise, Ichiya's expression returned to normal.

"No enemy can stop the perfume of Blue Pegasus from winning this tournament! Men~" he said, striking a pose with them.

In Fairy Tail's section, Erza quickly sat up as she regained consciousness.

"Wh-what happened?!"

"It's ok, Erza. The fight's over." Lucy replied, gently putting a hand on her shoulder. Hearing her words, and considering she was just now becoming conscious again, she realized she had lost.

"I...I see..." she sighed to herself. "Well, at least I won't have to deal with him anymore."

Back in the arena, Mato stood before the crowd once again.

"It's now time for the final fight in the first day of the inaugural Round Robin, kabo! Mermaid Heel's Kagura Mikazuchi, and Lamia Scale's Lyon Vastia, please come forward!"

Both mages quietly walked out into the arena, stopping several feet from each other, neither saying a word to the other.

"We're about to start our final bout for the day, Lyon vs Kagura in a rematch from the Grand Magic Games! It's the fight we've been waiting all day to see, and now it's finally time to see what happens when these two mages clash again!" Chipati said from the announcers' booth.

"Are both mages ready, kabo?" Mato asked, and both mages responded with a simple nod.

"Very well! Begin!"

The gong sounded, and Lyon immediately extended his right arm, pointing his hand at Kagura.

"Ice-Make: Eagle!"

As he said this, a magic circle opened in front of his hand, releasing several ice eagles, which curved around and flew at Kagura from various directions. But this was nothing she couldn't handle. Gripping her sheathed sword in her left hand while putting her right over the handle, she quickly slashed every eagle, destroying them all before any could hit her. Deciding not to give Lyon enough time to try attacking again, she then immediately dashed at him, swinging her sword horizontally toward his chest. Lyon, however, had expected the attack, and was able to jump backward to avoid it, stretching his arm out again.

"Ice-Make: Snow Tiger!"

Again the magic circle opened in front of his hand, this time releasing a large ice tiger which charged right at the Mermaid Heel mage. Kagura was unfazed by the sight of the large ice creature, and pointed the tip of her Archenemy at it before lunging forward, driving it into the head of the tiger. Upon impact, the tiger shattered into small pieces of ice, and Kagura rushed right through, reaching Lyon and delivering a roundhouse kick to the side of his head before he could react. The kick sent him rolling several feet, but he managed to quickly stand back up, with a slight smirk on his face.

"The ace of Mermaid Heel never fails to impress."

"Quick to praise, yet slow to impress. Are you holding back, Lyon? Or have you simply become weaker since our last encounter?" Kagura asked, unamused by his words, causing Lyon's smirk to be replaced by a more annoyed expression.

"Weak? I'll show you I'm far from it, Kagura. Ice Make: Diamond Cage!" holding his hand out once again, what appeared at first to be little more than a cold mist flew from his hand toward Kagura. She cautiously observed it, trying to find out what it was doing, but her eyes then widened in surprise as ice began to form all over her body, eventually becoming a sphere that encompassed her torso, as well as part of her arms and legs, greatly restricting her movement.

"D-Dammit..." she muttered to herself as she tried in vain to free herself.

"It's over, Kagura! Ice-Make: Snow Dragon!"

Out of his hand, the dragon made of ice came rushing forward, crashing into the now defenseless mage, the impact breaking the sphere of ice around her and launching her backward. Lyon smirked, certain he had won as Mato went to check on Kagura. But before he even reached her, she stood and dusted herself off. Her face had several scratches, and her clothes had been in torn in several places, many of the tears also revealing small lines of blood.

"I commend you for managing to land a hit. But that's as far as you'll go."

"We'll see about that! Ice-" before he could use his magic again, a sudden strong increase in gravity jerked him down onto his hands and knees.

"Tch. I was so focused on fighting against her sword I almost forgot about the gravity magic..."

He looked back up, but Kagura was nowhere to be seen. Suddenly realizing what had happened, he lifted his head and saw she was now high in the air over him, and rapidly began to descend with the tip of her Archenemy pointed right at him with her Strong Form, using the increased gravity to boost her speed. Reacting as quickly as he could, he struggled to lift his hand over his head.

"Ice-Make: Shield!"

As he said this, the shield of ice formed from the palm of his hand, and Kagura's sword came smashing into it just as it finished forming, the crash causing a massive cloud of dust to form, making it difficult for the crowd to see what had happened. When the dust finally settled, Kagura was seen standing over an unconscious Lyon as Mato ran over to look at the situation before facing the crowd again.

"Lyon is down! Kagura wins the battle!"

As the crowd cheered, Kagura let out a small sigh before walking back to Mermaid Heel's section, where her guildmates all happily congratulated her.

"Thanks you." Kagura replied shortly to them, before turning to look at Milliana. "Remember what I told you, Milliana. Since today is your bye, use it to observe your future opponents and learn what you can about them. You'll have to fight every day from now on, which means you have to be smart about how you approach each of your matches. Understood?"

"Yes ma'am! I'll do my best, Kagura-chan!" Milliana replied with a bright smile.

"Good." she said with a slight nod.

Lyon sat up and groaned slightly as he rubbed his head.

"Looks like I wasn't good enough this time..."

Lyon then felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see Jura smiling at him.

"You put up a good fight, Lyon-dono. And you still have plenty of time to make up for your loss. Try not to be too discouraged."

"You're right, Jura. I'll still do everything I can to win this for Lamia Scale."

He then stood up and walked back with Jura as the announcers discussed the results of the fights.

"Now that we've reached the conclusion of Day 1, lets take a look at the scoreboard! After some surprise victories, Block A has a four-way tie for first place as Chelia Blendy, Orga Nanagear, Emerita Megido, and Ichiya Kotobuki each have 2 points. Block B also has four people tied for the lead, Rogue Cheney, Mathias Cronqvist, Tsuki Mizuki, and Kagura Mikazuchi. We've had some excellent fights today, and are sure to see plenty more as the tournament progresses. But there's several important things to take into consideration beyond "who won or lost" their fights. Isn't that right, Yajima-san?"

"Hm, indeed. For example, now that Tsuki Mizuki has used a tag partner, she won't be able to do so again unless her opponent does so first. And with most people likely saving those for their S-Class opponents, it's likely she won't be able to get any more help from her guild for the rest of the tournament."

"Very good point. She got the points today, but may really end up wishing she'd saved it for later. Also, lets not forget that Milliana from Mermaid Heel, as well as Aira Aeolus from White Eclipse had their byes today. What does that mean for them as they enter the tournament starting tomorrow?"

"Well, they will certainly have an advantage tomorrow, considering they haven't had to fight yet, while their opponents are still feeling the effects from their fights from today. But at the same time, they'll have to fight every day from here on out, so that could prove to be a difficult task to manage."

"That certainly makes sense. Before we go, we'll announce tomorrow's matches. Everyone, please turn your attention to the screen at this time."

Up on the screen, everyone watched as the next series of matches were announced:

Erza Scarlet vs Chelia Blendy

Kagura Mikazuchi vs Eve Tearm

Milliana vs Minoru Kanemoto

Blues vs Mathias Cronqvist

Emerita Megido vs Bacchus

Aira Aeoulus vs Gajeel Redfox

Tsuki Mizuki vs Rogue Cheney

Orga Nanagear vs Reve Volver

(Bye: Ichiya Kotobuki and Lyon Vastia)

"There you have it, folks! So have a safe trip home, and we'll see you all back here tomorrow for Day 2 of the inaugural Round Robin! Goodnight, and thank you for coming!"


	5. Chapter 5

Round Robin

Ch. 5

The first day of the inaugural Round Robin had come to a close, and each of the nine guilds had gone back to their respective inns. In the bar of one such inn, the mages of Quatro Cerberus were drinking and having a good time, despite their lack of success in the matches earlier that day. Blues and Kuro Chi, the Water God Slayer, of course had glasses of water while the rest chugged mugs of beer. As they continued to drink and laugh among themselves, Goldmine, Quatro Cerberus' guild master, entered the room and took a seat with his guild's members.

"Alright guys. I know you're all having fun, but we need to talk about this tournament. While we still have plenty of time to recover, I think we can all agree this wasn't a great day for us."

"Ah, lighten up, Goldmine!" Bacchus said with a grin. "We had a rocky start, but we each got seven more fights in this thing. Oi Blues, who's your opponent tomorrow again?"

"Mathias. Black Phoenix's S-Class mage." the Dragon Slayer answered.

"Oh? My opponent's from that guild too. We may have no wins and two losses against Saber, but we'll just have to go undefeated against the rest now, won't we?! Wild!"

"FOUR!" the others all responded in unison before Goldmine continued.

"I like the confidence and the intensity. But you'll both have to play this smart if you want to make that a reality. Bacchus, Blues, have either of you figured out when you want to use your tag partner, or who you'll choose?"

"Yes, master." Blues responded. "And I'm pretty sure it shouldn't conflict with Bacchus' choice"

"Heh. Don't worry 'bout me. I know when I'll use it. But as far as who I choose, it doesn't really matter. Yaeger and Semmes would have a size advantage over just about anyone, War Cry's a fairly well-kept secret since most don't know how strong his Tear Magic is, Kuro's a God Slayer as well as one of our strongest, Rocker and I have worked together well in the past, and Nobarly's Smoke Magic can be pretty wild too. So whenever I need to pick someone, I'll just pick whoever's still available and seems like the best choice. Wild..."

"FOUR!" they all shouted again, before Rocker spoke.

"That's right! We'll all be ready to help out when we're needed! We came up short in the Grand Magic Games, but Quatro Cerberus is gonna win this tournament!"

They all began to shout, cheer, and drink again as Kuro nodded toward the guild master.

"Don't worry. We'll do whatever it takes to win this thing."

Goldmine grinned and nodded. "Well I guess that's settled then."

Across the street, the mages of Radioactive Decay were gathered in the lobby of their inn as well. Minoru Kanemoto was trying to read a newspaper, but was growing more irritated by the second with the constant yelling coming from Quatro Cerberus' inn.

"Tch. Damn idiots. They don't know when to shut up."

A hand gently rested on his shoulder, and he turned to see his guild master and girlfriend, Avani Moton, smiling at him.

"Try not to let it bother you too much. They're just excited about the tournament. Speaking of which, I think we should talk about it too." She turned her head and called out. "Tsuki, could you please come here for a moment?"

The dark-haired girl quietly walked over to where the two of them were.

"Yes, master?"

"I just want to talk about the tournament for a bit. First, I'm very proud of both of you. You fought well."

"Fought well? Minoru got his ass kicked!" said Sheiko Setaruga, the young Spectral Mage said from behind Avani, to which Minoru responded by simply glaring threateningly at him.

"...Well I'm just gonna go for a little walk." Sheiko said before his body turned into that of a ghost's, and he went right through the wall, leaving the inn as Avani sighed and rubbed her forehead.

"Anyway, who are your opponents tomorrow again?"

"Milliana" Minoru replied shortly.

"Rogue" said Tsuki,

"Alright. How do you both feel about your matchups?"

"I know I can take him. Shouldn't be a problem, master." Tsuki replied.

"Same. I won't repeat my mistakes from today's fight. I'll make sure I win this time." Minoru answered.

Avani smiled and nodded before looking at Tsuki.

"By the way, I think you made a great choice picking Iris as your partner. You two worked very well together. But if you don't mind me asking, why use your tag partner so early."

"Isn't it obvious?" Minoru said before Tsuki could reply. "She wants to do this on her own as much as possible, and she knows her opponents will be saving their tag partners for their S-Class opponents. By using hers early, she won't have it as a temptation for the rest of her fights." he explained, and Tsuki nodded to confirm what he said.

"I see. You know there's nothing wrong with letting your guild help you, Tsuki." Avani said.

"That's right! And if anyone does use their tag partner against you, we'll all be glad to help you out!" chimed in Melody Heywood,

Tsuki gave a slight smile and nodded. "Thanks, Melody."

Avani then sat down by Minoru to talk to him, and the rest of Radiactive Decay's mages resumed what they were doing.

In the lobby of another inn, the ladies of Mermaid Heel were sitting in a circle, with everyone's attention on Kagura, who sat with her legs crossed, and held a cup of tea in her hand.

"At this point, only three guilds remain undefeated in the tournament, Sabertooth, Black Phoenix, and us. It goes without saying, but I will continue to do my part in taking first place in Block B and moving on to the semifinals." she said before turning her attention to Milliana. "Milliana, I know this may sound like my expectations for you are rather high. But I truly believe you are capable of defeating any opponent in your block. Tomrrow you will fight Minoru Kanemoto, Radioactive Decay's S-Class mage. He is strong, but as you saw today, he is not unbeatable, and he will likely still be tired from today's fight. If you take advantage of this, wait for your openings, and attack at the right moments, you can defeat him."

Milliana nodded, her face full of confidence.

"I won't let you down, Kagura-chan!"

"Good." Kagura nodded and sipped her tea, then turned to face Arania Webb. "Tomorrow I face Eve Tearm of Blue Pegasus. If he has any sense at all, which I believe he does, he'll probably use his tag partner. If he does, I'll choose you to fight alongside me."

"Understood." Arania replied. "I'll do my best to assist you, Kagura."

"They better not underestimate Mermaid Heel! We're definitely gonna win this tournament!" Risely Law said with a confident grin.

"Indeed." Kagura said before taking another sip of her tea. "No one will stand in our way."

In the lobby of Fairy Tail's inn, the atmosphere was nearly identical to what it normally was in the guild. Gajeel and Erza might've lost their fights, but everyone was confident they would turn things around soon enough. Erza was sitting at the bar next to Cana, who had a mug of beer in her hand.

"Tough luck today with Ichiya. But at least that's over with, huh?"

Erza smiled and nodded. "I'm just glad I won't have to worry about it anymore. I can start taking this tournament more seriously now."

Hearing the conversation, Natsu went over to where they were.

"Erza! How come you didn't let me be your partner today!"

"Sorry, Natsu. I wasn't thinking very clearly earlier. But I'm sure you'll get a chance to be involved before this is all over."

"How 'bout you let me be your partner tomorrow then?!" he asked with an excited expression, as if he knew she was going to say yes.

"Well, Chelia's my opponent tomorrow. Nothing against her, but I think I'll wait until later to use my tag partner. But if she uses hers then I'll let you fight with me. How's that, Natsu?"

"Perfect! I'm all fired up now!"

In another area of the room, Juvia walked toward Gajeel.

"Juvia is sorry she couldn't be of any help"

"Huh? Don't worry about it, Juvia. Shit happens. And this tournament's far from over."

Juvia smiled and nodded. "Juvia knows you'll do great, Gajeel. Who are you fighting tomorrow, again?"

"Aira. That girl from White Eclipse."

"White Eclipse?! That guild is not a man!" shouted Elfman upon hearing Gajeel.

Laxus, who was leaning against the back wall, chuckled.

"Don't waste your breath complaining about White Eclipse when our own mages haven't even won a single fight yet."

"Yeah, cause you're doing so much to help out, right?" retorted Gray.

"Only one S-Class per guild could enter, and Erza took that spot. She's really making the most of it, isn't she?" he said in a sarcastic tone.

Erza frowned at the Lightning Dragon slayer.

"Don't forget we had a bad start in the Grand Magic Games but still won in the end. This is no different. One way or another, Fairy Tail will win the Round Robin."

"She's right! As long as we keep fighting for our nakama, we're sure to win this!" Lucy added with a confident smile as Elfman joined in again.

"Now THAT'S a man!

Laxus just chuckled again at hearing them.

"I hope you're right."

Ichiya and Eve both had bandages covering their wounds from their fights earlier, but were making their usual poses with the rest of Blue Pegasus' Trimens group.

"We have experienced the perfume of both victory and defeat today. And we will learn from today's experiences to prevail in the remainder of the tournament. Men~"

"Ichiya-sensei, your words carry as much wisdom as ever." Hibiki said. Jenny Realight, however, was looking at the situation differently.

"Confidence is good, but you guys should really think this through a bit more. Eve, even with Ichiya's Pain Relieving Perfume helping you, your injuries are sure to have an impact on your fight tomorrow. And the fact that Kagura's your opponent doesn't help at all. I really think you should let one of us be your tag partner tomorrow."

"Hm... You're probably right, Jenny-san. I'll definitely consider it." Eve replied.

"I'd be glad to help you against that beautiful mermaid, not that I care if she's beautiful." Ren said, causing Jenny to sigh and shake her head.

"Stop it, Ren. You're engaged. And Ichiya, since tomorrow's your bye, you should rest as much as you can and let your injuries heal."

"A warrior persists in the midst of his obstacles, but your words carry a wise perfume, Jenny. I will rest and recover, men~" he said as the four of them posed again, and Jenny simply looked on with an awkward expression.

Things were quiet among the White Eclipse mages. No one wanted to discuss the colossal upset that had occurred earlier when Chelia defeated Reve. And the Guns Requip mage was sitting by himself at a table, twirling a pistol on his finger as he thought to himself. The only sound was a crunching noise as Luke was eating a bag of chips. The crunching began to irritate everyone, until finally Reve spoke.

"Luke, take those to your room. I can barely hear myself think."

"Hm? What're you thinking about?" Luke asked.

"The tournament, obviously. Could you really not tell?"

"Well yeah, I just meant what specifically are you thinking about? The fight today, your opponent tomorrow, etc. Just curious."

"Forget about what happened today, Luke." Heather, the Poison Dragon Slayer said. "What's important is what happens now. He's fighting Orga tomorrow. He's probably just thinking of a strategy."

White Eclipse's Gravity God Slayer, Cygnus Gwydion, was eating a sub when he heard Heather's comment and laughed a bit.

"I bet he's just thinking about Erza and trying to figure out when he gets to fight her."

Reve shot Cygnus an annoyed glance before responding.

"I already know when I'm fighting Titania. Heather's right. I'm thinking about tomorrow's fight with Orga. And speaking of tomorrow, Aira, who's your opponent again?" he asked, turning his attention to the blonde girl. She reached into her pocked and took out her fight schedule.

"My opponent is...Gajeel Redfox." she answered a moment later.

"Heh. Fairy Tail, huh? You can handle him no problem." Reve said with a smirk.

"Bet you thought the same about Chelia." Cygnus said with a chuckle before taking another bite from his sub.

"Shut up, Cygnus." Tayakata said as she entered the room. "At any rate, the bottom line is a freak upset like that won't happen again, and we're still going to win this tournament."

"Damn straight." Reve said with a grin. "It's White Eclipse..."

"Or second place!" the others responded in unison.

In Black Phoenix's inn, the members were all in a good mood after both of its competing members had won their fights earlier today. Lucina was sitting at a table with Rita,talking about the tournament.

"How are your wounds, Rita?"

"My ribs are still a bit sore, but it's nothing to worry about." she said with a slight grin, under exaggerating the pain she was actually in. "Anyway, I'll be ready for my fight with Bacchus tomorrow."

Hearing the conversation, from a few tables over, Mathias chuckled.

"'A bit sore'? He almost crushed you with that boulder. There's no way you don't at least have a few cracked ribs. And I've told you, I have potions that can help fix that if you want."

"And I've told you to keep your damn potions to yourself. I don't need your help." Rita retorted, and Mathias just rolled his eyes.

"Tch. Stubborn woman..."

Tristan Gareth, Black Phoenix's SS-Class mage, laughed a bit as he sat down across from Mathias.

"Ah come on, you guys. We shouldn't be fighting right now. Both of you put on great fights and scored big wins for our guild. We're all on the same side here."

"Yeah yeah." Mathias said. "But I'll be the one to win this thing for us."

"Who's your next opponent, Mathias-san?" Tristan asked.

"Blues. That Dragon Slayer from Quatro Cerberus."

"You can take him no problem." said Mizaki Ome, another of the guild's S-Class mages as she walked over. "And I'm sure Rita and handle Bacchus just fine, too."

The Blood Dragon Slayer, Chisio Hidoi then joined in the conversation.

"Will either of you be using your tag partners tomorrow?"

"I doubt I will. Rita may need to though." Mathias answered.

"Shut up!" Rita shouted. "I'll use my damn partner whenever I feel it's necessary, and not a moment sooner!"

"Well, you guys should have plenty of good options available whenever you do decide to use them. So keeping this momentum going shouldn't be a problem." Tristan said.

Rita nodded in agreement. "I may not like Mathias, but I'm sure he can win against that Dragon Slayer. Those puppies are going down."

Lamia Scale's mages were all enjoying a peaceful night, and everyone had taken time to congratulate Chelia on her big win against White Eclipse's S-Class mage. Even Lyon was in a good mood, despite having been defeated by Kagura earlier, and was having a casual conversation with Yuuka. Jura walked into the inn, shutting the door behind him as Chelia happily went to greet him.

"Jura-san! Welcome back! Where were you, by the way?"

"I was at the arena. They've asked me to use my magic to repair the ground of the arena after each day of the tournament. How are you feeling, Chelia-dono?"

"Still have a bit of a headache, but I've been gradually healing it with my magic, so I'll be fine by tomorrow." She said with a bright smile.

"I'm glad to hear it. Speaking of tomorrow, I've been meaning to talk to you about your next fight. Lets sit down for a moment." He said, and the two walked over to a table before sitting down.

"Since you will be fighting Erza tomorrow, I'd like to give you some advice. Is that alright, Chelia-dono?"

"Of course, Jura-san! What is it?"

"Just some tips for your strategy. First, I think you should focus on avoiding her attacks as much as possible. Only attack when she does something that leaves herself open. You may have to wait a while for a chance like that. But if you try too hard to create those openings yourself, you'll have more things like this happen." he says, pointing to a large bandage wrapped around her head.

"I get it. And that'll also help me conserve magic energy in case I need to heal myself, right?

Jura smiled and nodded. "You're a smart young girl, Chelia-dono. And another key will be patience. There's a good chance you'll run close to the time limit if you want a chance to win this fight. As long as you stay cautious and patient, I think you'll do just fine."

"Thank you, Jura-san! And what about Lyon-san? Are you giving him advice too?"

"Tomorrow's my bye, so I'll just be scouting future opponents and cheering you on, Chelia." Lyon said as he made his way over to them.

"Oh, well thanks, Lyon-san! I'll do my best!"

"I know, Chelia. I'm sure you'll do great."

Sabertooth, like all the other guilds, had a discussion going in their inn about the tournament, as Sting had gathered all of the guild's mages.

"Great job today by both Rogue and Orga! Two wins over Quatro Cerberus' top mages have given us some great momentum in this thing. Who are you guys fighting tomorrow?"

"My opponent is Tsuki, the female Blood Mage from Radioactive Decay." Rogue answered while Orga looked for his fight schedule. After finding it, the God Slayer looked for a moment before answering.

"Reve. White Eclipse's S-Class mage."

"Oh? I can't say I know too much about Tsuki, but she did defeat Gajeel, so I'm sure that'll be an interesting fight. And Orga, you already know Reve's one of White Eclipse's best, so don't underestimate him too much. But I know both of you can win. Lets see if we can take Sabertooth to four wins and no losses by the end of the day tomorrow!" Sting said with a bright, confident smile.

Rogue just nodded in agreement, but a wide grin formed on Orga's lips, and he let out a small chuckle.

"Something amuses you, Orga?" Rufus asked, giving him a curious glance.

"I'm just excited to get a shot at one of White Eclipse's best. Once I take him down, the rest will be easy for me."

"A win tomorrow would certainly be a big step towards winning the tournament. Perhaps you should call on one of us to be your partner to help ensure that you win, Orga-sama." said Yukino.

Rufus let out a soft chuckle before speaking again. "Yukino certainly makes an interesting point. What do you think, Orga?"

"Heh. Don't worry about me. I already have my strategy for this tournament planned out. White Eclipse has spent too much time feuding with Fairy Tail over who's the best. But tomorrow, I'll show them who the real number one guild is."

"Well said, Orga!" Sting said with a smirk. "Now then, lets all get some rest. We've got another big day tomorrow."

And so the nine guilds concluded their private discussions, all feeling confident as they made their preparations and finalized their strategies. The mages each went to bed that night with a clear sense of determination to win their next fights. The first day had come to an end, but the Round Robin had only just begun.


	6. Chapter 6

Round Robin

Ch. 6

The sun came over the horizon, bringing the new day. And not long after people had woken up, they began filing into the arena for Day 2 of the Round Robin. The fans were still buzzing about all of yesterday's fights. The two most popular topics seemed to be the astonishing upset in the match between Reve Volver and Chelia Blendy, and the instant classic between the formerly unknown mages, Emerita Megido and Minoru Kanemoto. And as the people made their way to their seats, Chapati and Yajima's voices rang through the arena.

"Hello and welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to the inaugural Round Robin! We know you're as excited as we are, and we'll get to today's matches momentarily. But first, lets take some time to recap yesterday's events and remind you all of what you have to look forward to today! Yajima-san, what would you say is the most important thing we learned from Day 1?"

"Hm...There's many things I could say about yesterday's bouts. But if I had to pick one thing in particular, it'd have to be that anything can happen in this tournament."

"Ah, very true. Of course the example that stands out would be Chelia Blendy's huge underdog victory. But of course that's not all. Reviewing the current scores, Block A is currently led by Chelia Blendy, Emerita Megido, Orga Nanagear, and Ichiya Kotobuki. I never would have guessed that this would be the case, or that Bacchus, Erza Scarelet, or Reve Volver would all have 0 points at the end of the first day."

"Indeed, I was surprised as well. And Block B has been interesting as well. While its had fewer upsets so far, I didn't expect to see Gajeel lose yesterday. With him and Erza both losing, that means the defending champions from the Grand Magic Games are still scoreless at this point."

"Who would've thought? Though they aren't alone. Quatro Cerberus and White Eclipse have also failed to score any points thus far, while Mermaid Heel, Sabertooth, and Black Phoenix are all undefeated at this point."

"Hm. But as we've said, anything can happen. It'll be interesting to see where everything stands after today."

"Speaking of which, Yajima-san, lets take a moment to go over today's fights. Erza vs Chelia, Kagura vs Eve, Milliana vs Minoru, Blues vs Mathias, Rita vs Bacchus, Aira vs Gajeel, Tsuki vs Rogue, and Orga vs Reve. What're some important things to look at with these fights?"

"Well, Milliana and Aira each had their bye yesterday, and will be making their tournament debuts today. Both of their opponents, however, are likely still feeling the effects of their fights yesterday, so that could give Milliana and Aira big advantages today."

"Good point. Something else to keep in mind is the fact that Tsuki Mizuki used her tag partner yesterday against Gajeel. She earned two points from a victory in the process, but she will not be able to call on a partner for the remainder of the tournament unless one of her opponents chooses to do so. It's still early in the Round Robin, but it'll be interesting to see if anyone else elects to use their tag partner today. Now then, it's time to begin Day 2 of the inaugural Round Robin!"

By now almost all of the fans had found their seats, and Mato stood in the center of the arena, microphone in hand.

"Welcome back, kabo! Lets start today's matches! Erza Scarlet from Fairy Tail, and Lamia Scale's Chelia Blendy, please step forward!"

Erza strode out to the center of the arena, looking much more calm and mentally collected than she had yesterday before her fight with Ichiya, while Chelia jogged out with a beaming smile as she waved to the crowd. Erza smiled to the young God Slayer as the two stood in front of each other, and held out her hand for a handshake.

"Good luck, Chelia."

Chelia returned Erza's smile and shook her hand, and the crowd applauded the display of good sportsmanship between the two.

"You too! Don't hold back on me now, alright?"

"Of course. I expect you to go all out too." Erza replied with a nod, and the two backed up to create a bit of distance between them.

"Are both mages ready, kabo?" Mato asked, looking at Erza and Chelia, and both nodded. The fans seemed a little surprised that Chelia wasn't using her tag partner, but the gong rang to start the match.

"Begin!"

Erza was the first to act, as her body became engulfed in the bright light of her requip magic's activation. When the light died down, the audience cheered and applauded seeing Erza in her Heaven's Wheel Armor, with one sword in each hand, and several more floating around her. Erza rapidly charged straight forward, hovering slightly above the ground as she did so. Remembering Jura's advice yesterday, Chelia responded by gliding away from the scarlet-haired mage, using her magic to carry her. But Erza immediately spun to face the God Slayer again.

"You're not getting away!"

All the swords that had been floating around Erza then were sent hurling right toward Chelia. The young girl wasn't fazed, however, and expertly maneuvered through the oncoming blades without being cut even once by any of them.

"If that won't work, then I'll just try this then." Erza said as she requipped again, this time appearing in her Lightning Empress Armor. Aiming her spear toward Chelia, she opened a magic circle at the tip, firing a blue beam of lightning. Seeing the attack coming, Chelia reared her head back.

"Sky God's Bellow!" she shouted as she thrust her head forward, sending a vortex of black wind from her mouth. The two attacks collided, creating a large explosion in the center of the arena.

Erza cautiously scanned the area, waiting for the smoke to die down so she could see her opponent, but was surprised when Chelia came charging from the side.

"Sky God's Dance!"

Chelia rotated her torso and extended her arms, generating a spiraling current of black wind that launched Erza into the air before she had time to react. However, once she was high in the air, the black wind suddenly dispersed, revealing Erza, who had now requipped into her Black Wing Armor. Erza then came flying down toward Chelia, swinging her sword once she was near, though once again, Chelia glided away at the last moment, avoiding Erza's attack. Erza was now starting to get frustrated with the fact that despite being on the offensive for the majority of the fight, she hadn't landed a hit yet on the God Slayer. But if that was the case, maybe she just needed a speed boost. With that in mind, she requipped into her Flight Armor. Erza then charged once again, and this time was too fast for Chelia to keep up with. The Lamia Scale mage managed to dodge a few swings from Erza's sword, which seemed to be coming from every direction, before feeling Erza's leg slam into her stomach, the kick launching her back several feet. As she stood up, Chelia's body began to glow as she used her Sky God's Healing Spell.

"Your speed's impressive, Erza-san. But as long as I can heal myself like this, it won't be enough." Chelia said, her usual friendly smile still on her face.

"We'll see about that, Chelia." Erza responded with a grin before charging again. Chelia began to jump and glide around, doing her best to avoid a series of rapid attacks that Erza sent, but soon found herself wincing in pain as the sword cut her side, and a fist crashed into her cheek, sending her to the ground again. It seemed as if Chelia was down now, and as Erza landed on her feet, Mato went to check on Chelia. But just as he reached her, the God Slayer once again rose to her feet, glowing again as her injuries began to heal themselves. But still, she panted as she stood. Even if her injuries had healed, she was tired and had used a lot of magic energy.

"I'm impressed, Chelia. You've fought well." Erza said with a small smile. "But if you don't surrender now, I'll have to end it."

"Of course I won't... You're doing your best, so it wouldn't be right if I didn't keep trying too." Chelia responded.

"I understand." Erza said, before charging once again, reaching Chelia and connecting with a strong kick that sent her into the air before she could react. The young girl seemed to be unconscious even as she went into the air, and everyone knew the fight was over. However, black wind suddenly began to gather around Chelia's right arm. And while she was still in the air, she twisted her body and threw a massive, spiraling current of black wind down at Erza.

"Sky God's Boreas!"

"What?!" Erza shouted, surprised that Chelia still had enough strength to fight, and the attack hit its mark, creating a large dust cloud in the process. Chelia then landed on the ground and fell to a knee as she watched on.

"Oh! Did we just witness Chelia Blendy pull off another colossal upset?! What amazing resiliency!" chimed in Chapati from the announcers' booth as everyone waited to see the result of the attack. When the dust died down, Erza was panting, but still standing, now in her Morning Star Armor, and a sword in each hand.

"You almost had me, Chelia. But it's over now!"

Erza pointed her swords at Chelia, and a large yellow energy blast launched forward.

"Photon Slicer!"

Unable to dodge the attack, Chelia could only put her arms up as the blast hit, causing another explosion which sent the young girl flying back. Chelia remained motionless as Mato went to check on her. Not seeing any immediate sign that she could continue, he raised his hand, and opened his mouth to speak. But before any words had left his lips, he stopped when he saw Chelia start struggling to her feet once again. The crowd was on their feet in disbelief at what they saw. It was obvious Chelia no longer had the magic energy left to heal herself, and was covered in cuts and bruises. Yet still, despite all the damage she'd withstood, she managed to get back up again. Erza smiled in admiration of the young mage, who reminded her a lot of Wendy Marvell. She started to move forward, preparing to attack and most likely knock Chelia out for good this time, but stopped when the sound of the gong rang out through the arena, signaling for the match to end.

"The time limit has been reached! This match ends in a draw!"

The fans cheered and applauded as the announcers commented on the fight.

"What an incredible match! Even though Chelia wasn't able to pull off a win today, she still emerges from an intense battle with a point. And though I doubt this was the result Erza had hoped for, Fairy Tail is finally on the scoreboard now with a point."

"Indeed. That was a tremendous display of endurance from Chelia, and a good fight from Erza as well." Yajima replied.

Back in the arena, Erza requipped back to her regular armor, and walked over to Chelia, again offering her hand for a handshake. Despite her injuries and fatigue, Chelia gave a bright smile and shook Erza's hand again.

"Good match, Chelia. I'm sure you'll do well in this tournament."

"Thanks! You too, Erza-san!" Chelia replied.

Erza nodded before walking back over to her guildmates, where Lucy was the first to congratulate her.

"Nice job, Erza! You were great!"

"Thanks, Lucy. I wasn't able to get two points this time, but it's better than nothing."

"Don't sweat it, Erza." said Gray with a grin. "There's still plenty of people for you to beat. Who do you fight tomorrow?"

Erza's smile suddenly turned to a more serious expression as she thought about the opponent she would face tomorrow.

"You'll find out soon enough." was all she said.

Chelia slowly limped back toward Lamia Scale's section, but the other members rushed over to her well before she made it back. Jura picked the young girl up as they all started walking back together.

"You were excellent, Chelia-dono. I see you put my advice to good use." Jura said.

"He's right. That's two days in a row you've scored points for our guild against very powerful opponents. Good job, Chelia." Lyon added.

Chelia smiled and gave a slight nod. "Thank you all. I promise I'll keep doing my best."

Mato once again stood in the center of the arena.

"It's time for our next fight! Mermaid Heel's Kagura Mikazuchi and Blue Pegasus' Eve Tearm, please step forward, kabo!"

Both mages made their way out into the arena, and Mato looked at both mages as he spoke.

"Are both of you ready, kabo?"

Kagura gave a silent nod, but Eve didn't.

"Actually, I think I'd like to use my tag partner now."

"Very well, kabo! Eve has elected to call on a tag partner! Who will it be?"

Striking a pose, Eve pointed back to his guild's section.

"The beautiful miss Jenny Realight of course!"

"E-eh...? Me?" Jenny said, surprised and confused, but she shrugged made her way out, standing by Eve. "I wasn't expecting this, but it seems I'll have to do my best, I suppose."

"Kagura, who will be your partner, kabo?" Mato asked.

"Arania Webb" she answered immediately, her facial expression never even slightly changing as Arania made her way out and stood next to her.

"Just like you predicted, Kagura. This shouldn't be too difficult."

Kagura remained silent as Mato held his hand up and the gong sounded.

"Let the fight begin!"

Immediately, Eve held his hand out with his palm pointing toward Kagura and Arania.

"White Out!"

As he shouted the words, a magic circle opened in front of his hand, releasing a large snowstorm which quickly encompassed the Mermaid Heel mages, who put their arms up to keep the snow from getting in their eyes.

"Now's your chance, Jenny!"

"Right!" she responded, as her clothes then transformed into her Battle Form. While their opponents were still distracted, Jenny leapt into the air and descended into the snowstorm, catching Arania off guard with a strong kick to the head which sent her flying backward. As the snowstorm died down, Jenny smirked to herself, but was then surprised as she saw Kagura already rushing at her from the side. However, Eve wasn't about to let her harm his teammate.

"I don't think so! White Fang!"

Again he outstretched his hand, sending more snow towards Kagura, intending to surround her. But Mermaid Heel's S-Class mage wouldn't be caught so easily, and after lightening the gravity around her, she effortlessly leapt high into the air over it, and once again moved to attack Jenny as she came back toward the ground. Jenny had enough time to anticipate the attack this time, and managed to jump back to avoid it, but suddenly found herself wrapped up in a large spider web as soon as she landed.

"Wh-What the...?" she struggled against the webs, but couldn't free herself.

The webs had come from Arania, who had recovered from the hit she took earlier, and was now smirking at her trapped opponent.

"You shouldn't have taken your eyes off me." she said as Kagura moved in for the knockout blow. A second later, Kagura swung her Archenemy in a horizontal motion as she dashed past Jenny, and the female mage of Blue Pegasus fell unconscious.

"Jenny!" shouted Eve, but there was nothing he could do to help her. And as he saw Arania shooting another web at him, he was able to jump in the air to avoid it, but his eyes widened as he saw Kagura just above him, as if she'd been waiting for him.

"You're finished." she said, then swung her sheathed sword down at him, strengthening the gravity around them to increase the already intense strength of the attack. Her Archenemy connected with it's target, launching Eve into the ground, and the impact creating a large crater under his body. As Kagura landed on her feet, Mato ran over to check on Eve, before facing the crowd again.

"Eve and Jenny are down! Kagura and Arania win, kabo!"

The crowd cheered as Kagura and Arania began walking back to their section.

"Well done, Arania."

"Thanks, Kagura. I'm glad I was able to help."

Kagura nodded. "Now, once Milliana wins her fight, Mermaid Heel will have made it through the first two days of the Round Robin without suffering a single defeat. We're on our way to winning this tournament."

As Eve regained consciousness, Ren was crouching next to him.

"Are you alright, Eve?"

"Y-yeah... Sorry I lost again. Is Jenny alright?"

"She'll be alright. Hibiki's already helped her to the infirmary."

"I see. Sorry to worry you, Ren."

"Tch. Not like I care. It's natural I'd check on an injured teammate." the stereotypical tsundere said, turning his head away as Eve chuckled.

"Understood. Would you mind helping me back?"

"Yeah yeah. Lets go." Ren said, putting Eve's arm over his shoulders as he helped his teammate back to the infirmary.

"Now then, we're only two fights into the second day, but there's still plenty to talk about so far!" Chapati said from the announcers' booth. We've had our first draw of the tournament with Erza vs Chelia. That means despite still being low on the scoreboard, Fairy Tail has at least made some progress since yesterday. And the draw also means that Chelia Blendy has at least momentarily retaken the lead in Block A! The young god slayer has certainly put on inspiring performances during these first two days, but can she keep the momentum going through the remainder of the tournament?! And in Block B, Kagura has taken the lead after a dominating performance, despite her opponent using his tag partner. With Milliana still to compete later, can Mermaid Heel keep their undefeated streak alive through the second day?! And with six more fights to go, what will the scores look like at the end of Day 2?! Stay tuned to find out!"


	7. Chapter 7

Round Robin

Ch. 7

Day 2 had opened with two very different matches, with Erza vs Chelia coming to a surprising draw, and Kagura had defeated Eve in a rather one-sided effort. Now the crowd cheered as Mato stood in the center of the arena to begin the third match.

"Radioactive Decay's Minoru Kanemoto and Mermaid Heel's Milliana, please step forward, kabo!"

Milliana took a deep breath to calm her nerves before walking out, and Minoru made his way out at the same time, the two mages stopping several feet from each other.

"Before we start the next match, lets take a moment to talk about it, Yajima-san. What important things should we be looking at in this one?" Chapati said from the announcers' booth.

"Hmm... Well, there's several things. One being that this is Milliana's first fight of the tournament. That means she's coming into this at 100 percent, while I'm sure Minoru is still feeling the effects of yesterday's match with Emerita. However, after losing that hard-fought battle yesterday, I'm sure Minoru's determined to make up for it by scoring some points."

"Excellent points. And lets also keep in mind that Mermaid Heel is currently one of three undefeated guilds in the Round Robin, the others being Sabertooth and Black Phoenix. Two wins have brought some good early momentum for this guild, so I'm sure Milliana will want to keep that going as well."

Back in the arena, Minoru's expression was as stern and borderline emotionless as usual, while Milliana seemed to have a nervous, but serious presence about her as Mato looked to both mages.

"Are you ready, kabo?"

Both mages responded with a silent nod, and Mato raised his hand as the sound of the gong rang through the arena.

Milliana was the first to act, as her nails extended and she rushed right at the Solid Script mage, then leaped in the air toward him as she attempted to scratch him. But she suddenly gasped as she was met with a strong fist right in the center of her stomach which launched her backward. She rolled back as she hit the ground but managed to spring to her feet a moment later, clutching her stomach.

"Kagura-chan was right. I need to be more careful in this one." she muttered to herself as Minoru stood there, cracking his knuckles.

"What's wrong? You're not done already, are you?"

"Of course not! I'm just getting started!"

Milliana then extended a hand forward, pointing her palm toward Minoru.

"Nekosoku Tube!"

A magic circle opened in front of her hand, releasing a rope which surged forward toward Minoru.

"Hmph. Too slow." He said, unimpressed as he simply sidestepped the oncoming attack, writing the word "Fireball" in the air with his index finger. His magic then turned the word into a large ball of flame which was then sent hurling at Milliana. The Mermaid Heel mage's eyes widened in surprise at the incoming attack, but she managed to dive out of the way at the last moment, and the fireball exploded as it crashed into the wall behind her. Not wanting to give Minoru a chance to continue his attack, she then began to run around him from a distance, hoping her movement would make her a difficult target, and also waiting for an opening to attack again.

"Interesting." Kagura said as she watched on from Mermaid Heel's section, to which Beth replied.

"Hm? What is, Kagura?"

"Milliana knows she can't overpower him, so instead she's waiting for him to make a mistake she can capitalize on. She's grown since the Grand Magic Games."

"Don't underestimate Milliana!" Risley said with a confident grin.

Minoru was quickly growing agitated as Milliana ran around.

"Oi, get over here and fight!"

He lifted his finger again, this time writing "Lightning Storm" in the air. A magic circle then opened, firing multiple bolts of lightning toward Milliana. One by one, they struck the ground right behind her, barely missing as she continued to run, until one finally hit close enough to cause her to stumble and fall. Once again she quickly got to her feet only to see another fireball already coming toward her. With no time to dodge, the fireball exploded as it hit Milliana, drawing a light scream from her as it launched her back into the wall. As she slumped to the ground in a dazed state, Mato ran over to check on her, and Minoru simply stood with his arms crossed as he waited. However, just before Mato reached her, Milliana slowly started to struggle to her feet, causing Minoru's eye to twitch in anger.

"You just don't know when to quit, do you? Fine then. Have it your way."

He lifted his hand and wrote the word "War Hammer" with his finger, and the massive, two-sided hammer appeared in his hands as he started walking toward her. By the time he was within range to attack, Milliana was still not completely back on her feet. Minoru then lifted the hammer high over his head, and swung it down as hard as he could. But to his surprise, Milliana had managed to roll away at the last second, and the hammer smashed into the ground instead, leaving a large crater were the hammer hit.

"You annoying little..."

He lunged toward her, swinging the hammer repeatedly as quickly as he could. But Milliana somehow managed to duck, dive, or jump out of the way of each attack he sent. This continued for several minutes, until Minoru finally decided he'd had enough.

"This game of cat and mouse has gone on long enough!"

With that, he wrote "lightning" along the handle of the hammer, and the weapon became engulfed in electricity. Raising the hammer high over his head once more, he brought it down again. And though Milliana once again dove away from the hammer, the lightning burst out in all directions as the weapon hit the ground, delivering a painful shock to her. Once again she collapsed to the ground as Minoru approached her ready to ensure that the fight was over. But suddenly, he was surprised as he felt something wrap around his wrist, and looked down to see Milliana's Nekosoku Tube. To make matters worse for him, his hammer then disappeared into thin air. Milliana smirked as she looked up at Minoru.

"Feelin spi-"

Before she could even finish her signature phrase, Minoru pulled on the rope, sending the female mage flying toward him, then slammed his right arm across her head, clotheslining her and sending her crashing into the ground again. Dazed from the hit, she rolled over to see Minoru standing over her, the hammer back in his hands again, lifted up as he prepared to finally bring this fight to an end.

"Nowhere to run now. It's over."

But at that moment, the gong sounded, bringing the fight to an end.

"The time limit has been reached, kabo!" Mato announced. "This match ends in a draw!"

"WHAT?!" Minoru yelled as he heard the announcement. And as the crowd cheered, Milliana smiled as she laid her head down as she tried to catch her breath. But her expression quickly turned to a much more frightened one as she saw Minoru still standing there and holding the hammer up as he glared down at her. The S-Class mage's rage had escalated far past his breaking point. He was seeing red, and was fully prepared to attack with no regard whatsoever for whether she would survive, or the consequences that would follow. Those in the crowd all watched in utter shock and disbelief, and desperate cries for someone to stop this came from seemingly every direction. Minoru's hands tightened on the hammer, and he was just about to bring it down when he felt something pull on his arm and a voice in his ear.

"MINORU! IT'S OVER! PLEASE, STOP!"

Recognizing the voice, he turned to see the tear-filled eyes of Radioactive Decay's guild master as well as Minoru's girlfriend, Avani. He then looked back at Milliana, only now realizing what he was doing as he saw her terrified face. The crowd had gone dead silent now as the war hammer disappeared into thin air and Minoru slowly lowered his arms back down by his sides. His eyes then went to Mermaid Heel's section in the stands, where Milliana's guild mates all watched on with concerned expressions, with the exception of Kagura, who was now standing halfway to where they were, with a look similar to Minoru's a moment ago, and was tightly clutching her sword in case she decided to intervene. Minoru looked down at his hands, which were now shaking, then took one more glance toward his guild master before he finally spoke.

"I...I'm sorry, Avani..."

He turned and quickly walked away from the scene, wanting to get out of the arena as soon as possible, not even stopping to talk to the rest of his speechless guild mates as he walked right by them.

"Minoru..." Avani said as she watched him walk away. She then turned back to face Milliana and the Mermaid Heel mages, and gave a polite bow.

"Gomen nasai."

And with that she went and quickly followed after Minoru.

Kagura walked out and put Milliana's arm over her shoulders and helped her stand.

"Are you alright, Milliana?"

"I...I think so..." she answered.

Erza Scarlet had also run out into the arena to help her friend, and had now caught up to them.

"Milliana!-"

"I appreciate and understand your concern, Erza. But we can handle the situation." Kagura interrupted.

Milliana turned her head to face Erza and gave a small smile as she nodded.

"Thanks, Erza-chan. But don't worry too much about me. I'll be feelin' spiffy again in no time!" she said, though there was clear pain in her voice as she forced the words out.

Reluctantly, Erza nodded in acceptance.

"Just don't push yourself, alright?"

Milliana nodded, and Kagura helped her to the infirmary as Erza went back to Fairy Tail's section in the stands.

When the arena floor had been cleared, the announcers commented on the situation.

"Wow...So with that draw, Mermaid Heel remains undefeated and Minoru gets on the scoreboard. But I think it's safe to say what's really important with this one is the aftermath. wouldn't you say, Yajima-san?"

"Without question. I don't know what got into Minoru, but this is the kind of thing that starts wars between guilds. This is a very dangerous situation, particularly for Radioactive Decay. There's no doubt the council will be watching everything they do very closely for the remainder of the tournament."

"The last time a full-scale guild war occurred was between Fairy Tail and Phantom Lord, and we all know how that turned out. Indeed, Radioactive Decay will have to proceed cautiously if they don't want to meet the same fate as Phantom Lord. We'll follow this closely as it develops, but as they say, the show must go on. So lets proceed with the next match."

While the crowd was still buzzing about the incident from the previous match, Mato stood in the center of the arena with his microphone in hand.

"L-Lets start the next match, kabo! Would Blues of Quatro Cerberus, and Mathias Cronqvist of Black Phoenix please make their way out now!"

Both mages walked out to the center of the arena, stopping several feet in front of each other.

"Are you both ready, kabo?"

Both mages nodded, and the gong sounded.

"Begin!"

"Water Dragon's Roar!" Blues immediately shouted, surprising both Mathias and the crowd as he immediately launched the massive torrent of water from his mouth right at the S-Class mage, the attack tossing Mathias back several feet.

Blues grinned as Mathias got back to his feet.

"Not bad. You actually managed to catch me off guard. But don't get too full of yourself, puppy. It won't happen again." Mathias said. "It's my turn now. Lapiste!"

As he said this, one of his glyphs formed a large stone fist which launched toward Blues, causing the Dragon Slayer's eyes to widen as he barely managed to dive out of the way in time.

"That could've been bad. Looks like I can't afford to underestimate this guy. He is S-Class after all..."

His train of thought was interrupted as he noticed several lightning bolts now coming toward him, having been created with Mathias' "Fulgur" glyph. Blues leapt into the air in time to avoid them, only for Mathias' right fist to slam into his face, sending him crashing back into the ground. Mathias chuckled as he landed on his feet.

"Sorry. Was that too fast for you? I can slow down some if you'd like."

Blues shot Mathias an annoyed glance as he got back up.

"Oh don't worry about me. I'll be just fine. Blue Drive!"

The Water Dragon Slayer was then covered with a Blue aura as he entered his Blue Drive, and rushed right at the Glyph Mage.

"Water Dragon's Punch!"

Blued gathered large amounts of dense water as hard as steel around his fists, and began throwing them in rapid succession at Mathias' head and torso. With Blues' speed being enhanced by the Blue Drive, it was difficult for even Mathias to follow the Dragon Slayer's movements, though he still managed to avoid each strike before jumping back to create some distance between the two.

"Not too shabby. But I'm sure you know you're not the only one who can transform. Arma Miles!"

Mathias' body was then covered in a suit of black armor, with a giant sword in his hand

"Heh. That looks pretty wild. But it's nothing I can't handle."

With that, the blue aura around Blues became even thicker, and scale-like patterns formed on his body as he entered his Dragon Force. The Dragon Slayer then dashed around Mathias before rushing at him from behind. Mathias spun and swung his large sword, which Blues ducked under before lunging forward and slamming a water-infused punch to Mathias' stomach. Because of the armor, the punch didn't do any major damage, though he did stumble back a couple steps. Trying to press the offensive, Blues repeated his strategy, dashing around this time to Mathias' left side. Again Mathias swung the sword and Blues, ducked under it. But as Blues rose up to deliver another attack, he was suddenly met with the armor-covered knee of Mathias slamming right into his stomach, causing Blues to gasp, and knocking him back several feet. Panting a bit as he got up, Blues decided now was the time to try to end the fight with one of his strongest techniques, while he still had enough energy to use it.

"Secret Dragon Slayer Art: Heavy Rain!"

A huge magic circle then opened over the arena, unleashing a relentless onslaught of heavy raindrops as hard as steel.

Looking up and seeing the impending attack as the circle covered the sky above, Mathias activated his "Scutum" glyph, creating a shield on his arm. He then crouched down and held the shield over his head, gritting his teeth against the force of the rainstorm. For several minutes, Blues waited for his energy to recover so he could capitalize on Mathias' situation and attack again, while Mathias was simply waiting for the attack to end so he could move back on the offensive. However, neither mage would get a chance to act on their strategy, as the gong suddenly rang again.

"The time limit has been reached, kabo! This match is a draw!"

Blues' attack finally died down, the Dragon Slayer grinned slightly, while Mathias grimaced and rolled his eyes under his armor.

"Of course..." he said as he let his armor disappear. "Oh well. I suppose one point's still better than nothing."

"Oi, wild fight, Mathias." Blues said, just feeling proud of the fact that he had fought one of Black Phoenix's strongest to a draw.

"Yeah, same to you." Mathias replied, returning the Dragon Slayer's grin as he turned and walked back to his guild's section.

As Mathias made it back to his guild-mates, Tristan gave him a on the shoulder.

"Good fight, Mathias-san."

"Thanks. May not have gotten the two points, but I think it was a good warm up for tomorrow's fight."

"Hm? Who are you fighting tomorrow?" he asked curiously, to which Mathias chuckled and grinned.

"You'll see soon enough."

As Blues walked back to Quatro Cerberus' section, each of his guild-mates came over to congratulate him.

"Hell of a fight, Blues!" said Kuro, the Water God Slayer.

"Damn straight! That was wild!" Bacchus chimed in with a grin as they all then shouted.

"FOUR!"

"Speaking of wild, isn't your fight next, Bacchus?"

"Sure is. Guess I better get goin then. Today's started out good for us so far. I'm gonna make sure it ends that way too." the Drunken Falcon replied as he began walking out into the arena.

Once again Mato stood in front of the crowd.

"And now lets begin our next match! Bacchus form Quatro Cerberus, Emerita Megido of Black Phoenix, please come here, kabo!"

Bacchus was already a good ways out into the arena, and laid down on his side, propping his head up on his hand as he waited.

Rita simply walked out to the arena and stood several feet from Bacchus, glancing the Quatro Cerberus mage as she stood with her arms crossed.

"Well, puppy? Are we going to fight, or are you just going to stay there and take a nap?"

"Oi, oi. Why the rush? Lets just take our time and make this fight as wild as possible, huh?"

"I couldn't care less about that. I'm here to help my guild. I don't care how long it takes or what I have to do as long as I get the points I want."

"Ehh, you're such a downer." Bacchus said, scratching his head as he stood up. "My soul ain't even quiverin'. But whatever. Hopefully that'll change by the end of this fight. Oi, pumpkin head," he called out to Mato. "I'm ready. Lets get this started." he said as he crouched into his fighting stance.

"I-I see, kabo. And you, Rita? Are you ready?"

She thought for a moment about using her tag partner, but decided against it, choosing to wait and use it later in the tournament. Rita nodded to Mato to signal she was ready.

"Very well! Begin!" Mato shouted as the gong rang for the fifth time today.

His grin widening as he heard the sound of the gong, Bacchus burst out of his stance in a fast charge straight at Rita.

"I don't think so!" Rita shouted as she took out her scroll. Though she normally preferred to start her fights with hand to hand combat to conserve magic energy, she knew that wasn't an option today, considering Bacchus' style of fighting. So as Bacchus approached, she quickly read from her scroll.

"Hero's bane come down to defend! Blade Roller!"

She spun as she finished the incantation, and a blade as tall as her swung out toward Bacchus as he approached. However, his grin never left his face as he dropped to his knees and leaned back as he slid right under the blade. Coming to a stop right behind Rita, he quickly spun and slammed a magic-infused palm strike into her back, knocking her forward. Though the attack had hurt, she still had the presence of mind to land on the palms of her hands and spring back up to her feet, facing Bacchus again.

"Tch. He might've landed the first hit, but at least he helped me create some distance." she said to herself as she read another one of the scroll's incantations.

"Raise them high, o' mighty storm. Sky Fall!"

This time, a strong gust of swirling winds formed around Bacchus, tossing him high into the air.

"He's strong, but the puppy can't fly. Lets see if he can take the fall... Wait a minute..."

She squinted her eyes as she watched him in the air. Something wasn't right. Normally in this case the opponent's body would be twisting and turning every which way as it descended, but not Bacchus. In fact it seemed as if he held himself in an almost straight line as he started coming down. And as he did, Bacchus' voice rang out, quiet at first, but gradually getting louder.

"wwwwwwwiiiiiiiiiiiiiIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLDDDDDDDD!"

Rita's eyes widened in surprise as she realized he had used her own attack as a support for an aerial strike of his own, and barely managed to dive out of the way before the Drunken Falcon's palm slammed into the ground where she had been standing, destroying a much of the ground in that area and creating a large cloud of dust around him. Despite her attack not having had its desired effect, Rita wasn't about to let up.

"O' flickering flame of eternity, burn bright! Fireball!" she said, creating a large fireball which rushed into the cloud of dust and exploded.

When the smoke and dust finally died down, Bacchus was seen grinning as he stood there, though a bit of the armor around his wrists had chipped off.

"Gotta admit, that attack was more wild than I woulda thought. But as ya can see, it ain't quite enough."

"I think I'll decide for myself which of my spells are 'good enough' or not." retorted Rita as she recited from the scroll once again.

"Come forth, O sparks of the skies! Bring judgement down on thy sinners! Lightning Reign!"

"Hm?" Bacchus looked up and saw dark clouds forming overhead. Remembering this technique from watching Rita's fight in Day 1, Bacchus took off in a sprint toward Rita just before the bolts of lightning started raining down, swaying and zigzagging as he went to avoid the strikes as they hit the ground. Once he'd closed about half the distance between him and her, Bacchus pushed off his back foot and lunged forward at a fast speed, slamming a palm strike into Rita's stomach, causing her to gasp in pain, and launching her backward. Bacchus then grinned and crouched back into his stance.

"Wild..."

"FOUR!" his guild-mates responded in unison from their section in the stands.

Rita coughed up some blood as she got up. And once again she had to debate her strategy. She could use a healing spell on herself, but that might mean she wouldn't have enough magic energy for some of her stronger moves. But then she remembered Bacchus' palm strikes were only as powerful as they were because of the magic energy he put into them. Maybe taking that energy away would give her the advantage she needed. So she recited another incantation.

"Come forth o' avaricious netherworld and crush the evil before me! Oblivion Gate!"

What appeared to be a black hole then surrounded Bacchus. But instead of dragging him in, it sucked his magic energy right out of him, causing Bacchus to look around at his limbs in confusion.

"Hm? The hell's goin on...?"

"You're out of magic, puppy. You might as well surrender now." Rita answered with a confident smirk, to which Bacchus simply laughed.

"Huh?! Ya really think I didn't come prepared for somethin like that?"

With that, Bacchus smirked as he pulled his gourd out of his pocket.

"Damn!" Rita thought to herself. "I can't believe I forgot about that!"

She already wasn't in a good situation. But if Bacchus was going to power up, she needed to end this as soon as possible. Despite what Bacchus said earlier about prolonging the fight, it had now become a race to see who could land the bigger attack first. And so, Rita began preparing her Elder's Ruin spell, one of her most powerful, hoping to end the fight with it.

"O gods of old, grant me thy favor to punish thy defi-"

But before she could finish the incantation, Bacchus had drunk the alcohol in his gourd, enhancing both his physical strength and speed, while also replenishing his energy. And in what appeared at a glance to be one quick movement, he had dashed right by her, with lights emanating from her torso where seven near-instantaneous strikes had all hit their mark with full force. In addition to the fact that Bacchus had landed seven strong hits at once, he had interrupted Rita's incantation, unknowingly causing her to waste a lot of magic energy at once. It was all too much for Rita to handle at once, and she collapsed unconscious to the ground as Mato ran over to check on her.

"Rita is down! Bacchus wins the match!"

Bacchus grinned and threw his fist into the air.

"Wild!"

"FOUR!" his guild-mates responded.

As Rita stirred and began to regain consciousness, Bacchus smirked over at her.

"Better luck next time."

Not waiting for a response, he then walked back over to his guild's section.

Rita rolled her eyes at hearing Bacchus' words, before simply standing up and sighing as she limped back over to Black Phoenix's section, where Mizaki was the first to speak, giving Rita a light punch on her shoulder.

"Good try, Rita. You'll get him next time."

"Of course I will. That dumb puppy got lucky today. But for now, I need to go to the infirmary." Rita replied before continuing on to the infirmary to have her injuries treated.

"Well, it's certainly been an eventful day here in the inaugural Round Robin. With these last several fights, Black Phoenix's winning streak has come to an end, Eve has used his tag partner, and after all of Day 1 passing without a single draw, three of our first four fights today ended in draws. But the big story from today has definitely been the actions of Radioactive Decay's Minoru Kanemoto after his fight with Milliana." Chapati said in the announcers' booth.

"Indeed. If this results in an actual war between the guilds, we can likely expect one, if not both of the guilds to be forced to disband. Hopefully that doesn't happen, especially considering this tournament is meant to 'help' the guilds involved, not destroy them. However we'll have to wait and see what happens before we jump to conclusions."

"Very true. Whatever happens, we'll be sure to follow it very closely. And lets not forget, there's still three more fights left today. Aira vs Gajeel, Tsuki vs Rogue, and Orga vs Reve. Can Sabertooth keep their undefeated streak going through Day 2 of the tournament? Can White Eclipse get on the scoreboard? Can Gajeel get some momentum for Fairy Tail? We'll find out the answers to these questions and more soon, so stay tuned!"


	8. Chapter 8

Round Robin

Ch. 8

"It's time to continue with the next match, kabo!" Mato announced as he stood in the arena. "White Eclipse's Aira Aeolus and Fairy Tail's Gajeel Redfox, please step forward!"

"Easy points, Aira. You've got this." said Luke Cloud over in White Eclipse's section, as Aira responded with a smile and nod.

"Thanks, Luke. I'll do my best."

And with that, she walked out into the arena as Gajeel approached from the opposite end. When the two mages stopped, the announcers took a moment to discuss the matchup.

"This is certainly a matchup everyone's been waiting for since the blocks for the tournament were announced. White Eclipse and Fairy Tail have feuded over who is the number one guild around quite a bit in recent memory. But aside from the guild rivalry, there's several other things that important to note as well, right, Yajima-san?"

"You can't talk about a fight between Fairy Tail and White Eclipse without also mentioning the feud between them, but you're right. Gajeel's coming off an upset defeat from yesterday, and will also try to boost Fairy Tail's currently low overall standing on the scoreboard. Aira is looking to get White Eclipse on the scoreboard, but lets not forget this is her tournament debut. She hasn't had to fight until now,and that could potentially go a long way in helping her."

"Very good points. Now then, lets see what happens as the match starts."

"Are both fighters ready, kabo?" Mato asked, to which each made responded with a silent nod, determined expressions on both their faces.

"Begin!" he shouted as the gong rang.

Unlike in many of the previous fights, neither mage immediately charged forward. Instead, both remained still and waited for the other to strike.

"Ladies first." Gajeel said.

"It's White Eclipse tradition to let the weaker opponent go first." Aira retorted.

"Then go right ahead!"

Annoyed by the fact that Gajeel was looking down on her, she decided to make the first move.

"Fine then. Gale Force Winds!"

She clapped her hands together, creating a tornado between the two of them. Gajeel put his arms up to protect his face, and braced himself, expecting the tornado to pull him in. He was a bit surprised, however, when his feet slid backward against the ground as the winds instead pushed him away.

"Trying to keep me at a distance, huh? Sorry, but that ain't gonna work."

With that, he pointed his arm at her, preparing an attack of his own.

"Iron Dragon's Lance: Demon Logs!"

His arm turned into an iron spearhead, then glowed green as it fired multiple iron spears at Aira in rapid succession. Aira ran to the side, many of the spears flying by behind her, though she had to duck, jump, and dive to avoid a few as well. But she knew she couldn't keep this up forever, and needed to take the offensive.

"Sonic boom!"

As she said this, several small bursts of strong wind went flying toward Gajeel. The Iron Dragon Slayer simply grinned as they approached, and his body suddenly became covered in iron scales just as the bursts of wind hit. The attack caused him to stumble back a step or two, but he was otherwise unfazed.

"Giheh. That all you got?"

Aira didn't let the taunt bother her, and instead swiped her arm forward, sending small but sharp projectiles of wind at Gajeel. The Iron Dragon Slayer just chuckled and put his arms up, waiting for them to hit. But to his surprise, as the projectiles hit, each of them caused pieces of the iron scales to break off, and a few had cut deep enough to draw thin lines of blood on his wrists. His expression then changed from smug and confident, to one of frustration and annoyance. Aira's reaction, however, was the exact opposite, as a smirk appeared across her face.

"Don't think you've won just because you managed to give me a couple scratches."

"You've already made the mistake of overestimating your scales' defensive power. Don't also make the mistake of underestimating me, Gajeel."

"You want me to take this more seriously, is that it? Fine then. Just remember you asked for it."

With that, his grin returned as shadows began to fuse with the scales, and he entered his Iron Shadow Dragon Mode. Knowing this situation wasn't to her advantage, Aira decided to try a preemptive strike, hoping to stop him before he could attack.

"Black Hurricane!"

The blonde mage summoned a black orb over her index finger. The orb started to grow, before disappearing as a magic circle appeared beneath Gajeel. Strong black winds flew out of the magic circle all around Gajeel, completely encompassing him as they swirled about. After sustaining the winds for nearly a minute, Aira dispelled the winds to see how much damage she had done. But to her surprise, and the surprise of all watching, Gajeel was nowhere to be seen. Many in the crowd were baffled and confused, but Aira had already figured out what happened.

"He must've sunk into the shadows sometime during that attack." she said to herself as she quickly looked around, scanning the arena for her opponent. She finally looked down, only for an iron and shadow covered pole to launch from the ground and slam just under her chin, knocking her high into the air. Gajeel then emerged from the shadow, facing her while she was in the air.

"Iron Shadow Dragon's...Roar!" he shouted at the top of his lungs as he released the intense roar of iron and shadows at the defenseless White Eclipse mage. The roar hit with full force, launching her even further into the air before she fell and landed on the arena floor.

The Fairy Tail mages all cheered loudly for Gajeel while the White Eclipse mages frantically yelled to try to encourage Aira to get up. And as Mato ran over to check on Aira, Gajeel crossed his arms and let his scales and shadows disappear as he reverted back to his normal form. Mato was just about to signal for the match to end, when Aira began to stand, a faint glow outlining her body.

"Trying to heal yourself so you can keep fighting, huh? Quit being stubborn and just stay down." Gajeel said as he walked over to Aira, stopping when he was right by her. He waited for some kind of response, but the female remained silent.

"Fine then. Time to show you who the real number one guild in Fiore is."

He pulled his fist back to throw a punch, but was then caught off guard as Aira sprang to her feet, grabbing his shirt with one hand as she swung the other, slapping the Dragon Slayer across the face. Several seconds later, Gajeel turned his head back to glare at Aira, who despite having healed herself somewhat, was panting because of her wounds and fatigue. Gajeel then threw his fist forward, his punch crashing into Aira's jaw as it knocked her backward.

Again, the White Eclipse mages yelled to Aira, trying to cheer her on, when suddenly Reve looked up at the arena's screen and grinned.

"Heh. It's over. Aira's won it."

The others all looked at him with confused expressions.

"What're you talking about, Reve? She's barely even conscious." Heather responded.

"Take a look at the screen."

They all looked up at the screen, and gasped practically in unison when they saw a small star on Gajeel's chest. A few people in the crowd had noticed it too, but no one other than the White Eclipse mages knew what it meant, as their worried expressions quickly changed to confident grins.

"Like I said, easy points." Luke said.

As Aira once again struggled to get back to her feet, Gajeel just shook his head.

"I've had enough of this."

He then turned his arm into the Iron Dragon's Sword. But right as he activated his magic, the star on his chest grew, and Gajeel's arm reverted back to normal as an intense pain began to surge all through his body. The Dragon Slayer yelled out and dropped to the ground, writhing around in agony as Aira finally managed to stand back up.

"The spell won't end until I stop it. Give up, Gajeel!

"N-Never!" he responded, gritting his teeth and trying in vain to block out the intense pain. The pain continued, as did Gajeel's agonized shouts which filled the arena as the Fairy Tail mages, who had been ready to celebrate a win moments ago, now looked on with concern.

"Gajeel! I'll stop the spell as soon as you surrender! Just do it!" Aira shouted, not wanting to cause any more pain than necessary to win the fight. But even amidst the intense pain, Gajeel managed to give a defiant smirk, and even started to struggle back to his feet.

"Giheh... Hell will freeze over before I quit because of something like this!"

"Fine. Then you leave me no choice. Tempest!"

As she spoke, a hurricane formed around Gajeel, with bolts of lightning appearing and electrocuting him for several seconds, drawing even more pained shouts from him before the attack finally died down. And when it did, Gajeel slumped over and fell unconscious on the ground. Mato ran over to check on him, but it was clear Gajeel wouldn't be getting back up again.

"Gajeel is down! Aira wins!"

Cheers came roaring from the White Eclipse mages as Aira smiled and limped back to her guild's section.

"Nice job, Aira. Knew you could do it." Reve said with a grin as he pat her shoulder.

"Thanks! I'm still pretty tired, so I think I'll go rest in the infirmary for a while. Good luck in your fight, Reve." she said before walking away.

"Speaking of your fight, Reve," Tayakata chimed in, "make sure you stay focused this time. I know what you're thinking, but don't let it interfere with your fight."

"Yeah yeah. Don't worry, Taya. Orga's as good as finished."

"Hm? What're you talking about?" Luke asked Taya with a curious expression.

"...You'll see soon enough. It's better not to bring too much attention to it for now."

Gajeel rubbed his aching head as he regained consciousness, then stood and limped back to Fairy Tail's section, where most of the mages attempted to reassure him that everything was fine, and there was still plenty of time to make up for the loss. Except for Natsu, of course.

"Huh?! You lost again?! Why didn't you let me be your tag partner?! I could've taken her!"

"Oi, shut up, flame brain." Gray said. "You're not helping anything."

"What was that?! You wanna go?!" Natsu retorted, getting ready to start a fight with his rival then and there, before Erza stepped between them.

"Enough, both of you!" she shouted, and the two immediately quieted down.

"Erza," Gajeel said, looking over at her. "We're two days in and haven't won yet. That stops now. Tomorrow we're gonna win both our fights and turn our momentum around. And between the two of us, your win will be much more important."

"I was just thinking the same thing." Erza said with a nod.

"Eh? What do you two mean?" Lucy asked.

"...You'll see soon enough." Erza replied.

Back in the arena, Mato spoke again.

"Rogue Cheney of Sabertooth, and Radioactive Decay's Tsuki Mizuki, please step forward, kabo!"

The crowd began to mumble amongst itself as Tsuki walked out, as everyone was still shocked by what Minoru had done in his fight earlier against Milliana. Tsuki glanced over at Mermaid Heel's section, and wasn't surprised to see they had already left the arena. Master Avani and Minoru had also left, and though it seemed unlikely, she hoped Mermaid Heel hadn't intended on starting a fight with them somewhere outside the arena. Rogue, however, had much different thoughts on his mind as he made his way out. Since Tsuki had defeated Gajeel yesterday, Rogue was interested in facing her and seeing her power firsthand. Neither mage said anything as they came to a stop and looked each other in the eye.

"Are both mages ready?" Mato asked, and they each gave a silent nod.

"Very well. Begin!" he said as the gong sounded.

Knowing Rogue's shadows would be difficult to deal with, Tsuki decided to try attacking before he could utilize them, creating a katana of blood before charging at the Dragon Slayer. Rogue wasn't fazed, however, and drew his own katana, using it to parry Tsuki's attack as the blades clashed in a deadlock.

"You're not the only one who knows how to fight with a sword." Rogue said in a calm manner.

"Hmph. Just because you have one doesn't mean you can keep up with me."

Tsuki then pushed back to break the deadlock, and the two mages began swinging their swords, the sounds of colliding blades filling the arena as neither mage managed to hit the other for a few minutes. Finally, it was Tsuki who found an opening and swung her blade across Rogue's chest, causing him to wince in pain, before sending a kick to his stomach that knocked him back. Rogue placed a hand on his chest, as if to see how severe his injury was. And though blood was flowing down from it, it didn't seem to be a very deep cut. He knew he'd be fine as long as he finished this fight quickly. With that in mind, Rogue covered his body in a shadowy aura as he entered his Shadow Drive. Tsuki cursed under her breath, but knew tried to remain calm, knowing that she may not be able to deal damage to him in this form, but if she could just avoid him for a while, his injury would take its toll and weaken him. Rogue then sunk into the shadows and sped right for Tsuki.

"Here he comes." she muttered, bracing herself as she awaited his attack. The Dragon Slayer emerged from the ground in front of her with an uppercut, though Tsuki saw it coming and backed away to avoid it. Rogue then quickly began to fly around through the air, causing Tsuki to frantically look around in an attempt to follow his movements. Rogue came flying at her from the side, which Tsuki tried to counter by sending a roundhouse kick at his head, only for it to pass right through his body. Rogue his rapid flight around the Blood Mage until he found a good opening to attack. Gathering shadows in and around his hand, he lunged forward, slamming the shadows right into Tsuki's stomach.

"Shadow Dragon's Slash!"

The attack drew a quick shout of pain from Tsuki as it knocked her several feet back. Rogue stopped for a moment to check on his wound, starting to feel dizzy from the blood loss.

"I have to end this now..." he said to himself before flying up into the air above Tsuki, who was only just now getting back up and hadn't noticed where he'd gone.

"Shadow Dragon's Roar!" Rogue shouted, firing the shadowy blast down at her. Tsuki looked up as soon as she heard his voice, but didn't have enough time to react as the roar hit with full force, leaving a large dust cloud from the impact of the attack. And when the dust finally settled, Tsuki was seen lying unconscious on the ground as Mato ran over to check on her.

"...Tsuki is down! Rogue wins the fight, kabo!" Mato said.

His expression being as calm as ever, Rogue deactivated his Shadow Drive and walked back to Sabertooth's section, where Sting happily pat his friend on the back.

"Nice job again, Rogue! Sabertooth's still undefeated! Looks like we're well on our way to winning this tournament, huh?"

Rogue gave a faint smile and nodded. "Was there any doubt? Anyway, as much as I'd like to stay for Orga's fight, I need to go to the infirmary for now. Let me know how it goes."

"Sure, no problem. I'll see you back there in a little while."

Rogue gave a silent nod before walking back to the infirmary.

Tsuki stood and dusted herself off as she regained consciousness. "Tch..." She walked back to her guild's section, where Lisa Takahashi was the first to speak.

"Good fight, Tsuki. You gave it your best shot." she said, to which Tsuki simply gave a silent nod. "By the way," Lisa continued, "Master said we all need to go straight back to the inn when your fight was over so we can talk about...you know."

Again Tsuki nodded, not wanting to say anything about the Mermaid Heel incident either. "That's fine. I need to start preparing for my fight tomorrow anyway."

With that, the Radioactive Decay mages left the arena and all headed back to their inn together.

Mato spoke into his microphone once both mages had left.

"It's now time for the final match of Day 2, kabo! White Eclipse's Reve Volver, and Sabertooth's Orga Nanagear, please come forward!"

The two mages confidently strode out into the arena, stopping a few feet away from each other.

"Your little feud with the fairies has distracted you from who the best guild really is. But that's fine. I'll be happy to remind you." Orga said with a grin.

Reve just chuckled as he responded. "Please. Fairy Tail dethroned your guild, and we've already put them away today. You won't be any different."

"Heh. We'll see about that." Orga replied, and the two backed up a bit, waiting for the match to start.

"Are both mages ready, kabo?" Mato asked, and both Reve and Orga nodded as the gong sounded.

"Begin!"

Not moving from where he had was standing, Reve requipped a pistol into both of his hands and aimed them at Orga, who didn't seem to be even slightly intimidated by the guns.

"Bang." Reve said with a smirk, before firing repeatedly with both pistols at the God Slayer. Covering his body in black lightning, Orga seemingly flew all around the area, maneuvering through each of the shots fired, eventually appearing high in the air above Reve with his hands held out in front of him.

"120mm Black Lightning Cannon!"

As he spoke, a large beam of black lightning launched straight down at the Guns Requip mage, who dove out of the way just as the lightning crashed into the ground, creating an explosion as it did so. Right as Orga landed on his feet, Reve had sprung back up and already requipped an assault rifle.

"You may be fast, but lets see how you do against this!"

He aimed the gun forward and pulled the trigger, and bullets of raw magic energy rapidly came streaming toward Orga, who once again covered his body in lightning and dashed around the arena as he avoided the bullets.

"Tch. Those guns are getting annoying." Orga said to himself as he moved, eventually appeared behind Reve and started to charge forward. Reve, however, had anticipated this, and requipped a sawn off shotgun into his hand when Orga went behind him. And as the God Slayer charged forward, Reve smirked as he turned around and used his Quickdraw technique, a magic circle appearing under his hand and propelling it up, and quickly pulled the trigger. Orga was mere inches in front of Reve when the blast from the shotgun hit him with full force, launching him backward. Reve chuckled as Mato ran over to check on Orga.

"Really? Is that all Sabertooth's God Slayer can do? How disappointing."

Not even a second after he said that, however, a sphere of black lightning surrounded him.

"What the hell?!" Reve said, frantically trying to figure out how to escape his situation. But there was no path of retreat for the Guns Requip mage, as the electricity from the sphere then violently electrocuted him, causing him to shout out in pain from inside the sphere. Orga slowly got back up to a knee, panting as he did so. And when the sphere of lightning was finally gone, now it was Reve who was on the ground, with Mato running over to check on him.

"Heh... That's what you get...for underestimating Sabertooth." Orga said with a grin. However, Reve was then heard chuckling again as he pulled himself back to a knee as well.

"Oh, is that right? Well then this is what you get for underestimating White Eclipse. Devil's Wheel."

Orga's grin changed to a confused expression, but something then caught his attention. He looked up, and his eyes widened in shock as he saw roughly twenty different guns floating in a circle above him. Reve smirked once again, and held his hand out like a gun, pointing it at Orga.

"Bang."

As he said that, each of the guns fired everything they had on Orga, hitting with full force before the tired God Slayer could react. And as the smoke cleared, Orga was on the ground once again, clearly unconscious this time.

"Orga is down! Reve wins, kabo!" Mato announced.

As he slowly stood back to his feet, Reve grinned at the unconscious God Slayer.

"Sabertooth had its run as the top guild. But your time's up. Same goes for Fairy Tail. It's White Eclipse, or second place."

And with that, he walked back to White Eclipse's section in the stands as his guildmates came over to congratulate him.

"Nice job, Reve. With Aira beating Gajeel earlier, this means we've beaten the two previous top guilds in one day." Takeru Tenebrae, the Shadow Dragon Slayer said.

"Heh. All in a day's work. And I'm sure tomorrow will be even better." he said with an eager grin.

By now Orga had stood back up, and gave a frustrated grunt before making his way back to the other Sabertooth mages. Rufus chuckled as the God Slayer returned.

"My my. That White Eclipse mage made you look rather foolish, Orga."

"Shut up, Rufus. It's still early in the tournament."

"Of course. I merely jest. I have no doubt you and Rogue shall both prevail in the end."

Orga didn't respond, except to cross his arms as he looked back out to the screen in the arena.

With the final match of the day finished, Chapati and Yajima took a moment to comment.

"Certainly a lot of interesting things have happened here in the second day of the Round Robin. After all of Day 1's fights ending with declared winners, three out of the first four of today's fights ended in draws! This of course included another spectacular surprise performance from Chelia Blendy, who now leads Block A with three points!"

"Hm... Yes indeed, Chelia was quite impressive. But of course we can't mention those first matches without talking about the incident between Radioactive Decay's Minoru Kanemoto and Mermaid Heel's Milliana."

"Of course. After the match ended in a draw, Minoru let his frustration get the best of him, and was about to attack her right out in the arena, but was stopped at the last moment by Radioactive Decay's Guild Master, Avani Moton."

"Yes, and as we said earlier, it's things like this that can potentially lead to wars between guilds. I certainly hope the situation doesn't escalate to that, but we all saw how furious Kagura was. Whether this conflict can be resolved peacefully remains to be seen."

"And naturally we'll give an update if we learn more. Lets also remember that Mermaid Heel remains undefeated thus far after today, with Kagura and Rogue now tied for first place in Block B with four points each. Quatro Cerberus and White Eclipse also had good days, with each of their mages winning today, including Aira Aeolus who made her first appearance in the tournament today."

"On the other hand, Fairy Tail still hasn't won its first match of the tournament. Erza Scarlet only has one point, which of course came from a draw in today's match. It'll be interesting to see if they can turn their momentum around as the tournament progresses.

"Speaking of which, Yajima-san, lets take a look at the screen as tomorrow's matches are announced."

All the fans and mages in the arena watched as the matchups for Day 3 showed up on the screen:

Milliana vs Bacchus

Orga Nanagear vs Emerita Megido

Blues vs Tsuki Mizuki

Aira Aeolus vs Rogue Cheney

Ichiya Kotobuki vs Minoru Kanemoto

Kagura Mikazuchi vs Mathias Cronqvist

Lyon Vastia vs Gajeel Redfox

Erza Scarlet vs Reve Volver

(Bye: Chelia Blendy and Eve Tearm)

"Ah, so that's what you meant earlier, Taya." Luke Cloud said over in White Eclipse's section as he read the screen.

Taya simply sighed and nodded, but Reve had a wide grin on his face as he looked over at Fairy Tail's section, where Erza was practically glaring back.

"It's you and me tomorrow, Titania."


	9. Chapter 9

Round Robin

Ch. 9

Now that Day 2 of the Round Robin had come to a close, the guild all left the arena and went back to their inns. Radioactive Decay and Mermaid Heel had both left long before the others, however, which was quite understandable for both considering what had happened during the bout between Minoru and Milliana earlier that day. Now, the many of the mages of Radioactive Decay sat with somber expressions at various tables in the main lobby, no one knowing what to say. Tsuki was upstairs in her room, silently preparing for tomorrow's fight against Blues. As much as the controversy bothered her too, she felt she had to focus on why she was there. Minoru was sitting at a table near the back corner, resting his head on the palm of his hand, inwardly hating himself for what had almost happened. The guild master was doing her best to try to console or reassure Minoru, but couldn't get much of any kind of response out of him. After this continued for a while, Avani frowned and sighed, not knowing what else to do, and was about to get up and go to her room when the door of the inn suddenly slammed open, the noise instantly gaining the attention of everyone in the lobby. Lisa Takahashi, another S-Class mage from the guild poked her head out of her room to see what was causing the commotion.

"What's going on out there?"

No one immediately answered, and all eyes were focused on Kagura Mikazuchi, who was standing just inside the doorway, with a clearly anxious Milliana cowering right behind her.

"Kanemoto!" the ace of Mermaid Heel shouted at the top of her voice. "You know why we're here! Come over here and talk to us!"

Everyone's eyes turned to the corner where Minoru was, as the white-haired man stood and walked over to where Kagura was, stopping less than a foot away from her, remaining silent as he did so. Kagura nudged Milliana out from behind her, and the neko girl looked up at him, still just as scared as when she entered the room.

"Apologize. Now." Kagura demanded, an almost threatening look in her eyes as she waited. Sheiko Setaruga, the Ghost Mage of Radioactive Decay, didn't take too kindly to Kagura's words as he seemingly appeared out of nowhere right by Minoru.

"Oh hell no! If this bitch thinks we're apologizing for anything, she's got another thing coming! Lets kick her ass right now, Minoru!" he shouted. However, when he saw the death glares that both Minoru and Kagura were giving him, he immediately stopped talking.

"I'll handle this myself, Sheiko." Minoru said.

"Alright, alright. Carry on." Sheiko responded in a casual tone as he backed away.

Turning back to face the Mermaid Heel mages, Minoru looked at Milliana and nodded his head in a slight bow before speaking.

"I'm sorry. I was wrong to let my temper get the best of me in the arena. I have no grudge whatsoever against Mermaid Heel, nor do I want any kind of unnecessary conflict between our guilds."

Milliana remained silent for a moment before Kagura looked at her and spoke.

"Whether you accept the apology is up to you, Milliana."

She took a moment and thought it over, and her anxious expression slowly changed into her normal, cheerful one as she jumped forward and latched onto Minoru with a hug.

"Nya! Apology accepted!"

Everyone in the room breathed a sigh of relief except for Minoru, who had an irritated expression due to Milliana's sudden hug. Kagura pulled her guild mate back before speaking again.

"We don't want any unnecessary conflict either. But if an incident like this ever happens again, we won't be so forgiving." And with that, she turned and walked out of the inn. "Lets go Milliana."

Milliana smiled and waved to the Radioactive Decay mages before quickly going to catch up with Kagura. Minoru then let out a heavy sigh as he went an sat back down, and Avani smiled as she came over and kissed his cheek.

"I'm proud of you Minoru. And see? I told you you could handle the situation."

Before Minoru could respond, Sheiko once again appeared by them.

"What gives, huh? Why'd you apologize?"

"Because we don't need a war, and neither do they." Minoru explained. "Besides, I've hurt our guild's reputation more than enough."

"Don't worry, Minoru." Avani said in a comforting tone. "Now that the situation with Mermaid Heel's been resolved, the rest will come soon enough. Try to focus on your matches in the tournament instead, alright?"

He nodded in agreement. "You're right. I'll do my best."

In the inn where Black Phoenix's mages were staying, Rita and Mathias were arguing as usual, though after today's matches, both were in bad moods causing this particular argument to be more intense than normal. Mathias said Rita was foolish for fighting injured and not using her tag partner, while Rita told him to mind his own business and actually defeat his opponents instead of fighting them to a draw, to which Mathias responded that at least he hadn't lost a fight yet, then Rita told him to stop being overconfident, and so on. The bickering was getting on everyone's nerves, though no one wanted to be the one to get between them. Finally, Master Anri slammed her fists on a table as she stood and shouted.

"HHHHHHHRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH !"

Finally, the two mages stopped arguing as they looked over at Anri in unison. The guild master walked over to them before "lightly" slapping them both across their faces.

"Mathias, you're fighting Kagura tomorrow, which could be your toughest fight of the tournament. Rita, even though you've been healed somewhat, you're injured and going up against Orga tomorrow. Both of you. Get. Your shit. Together!"

"Yes master..." they both said before going off to separate tables. The Frost Dragon Slayer, Hikaru Frost, spoke after they'd both sat down.

"Master's right. Tomorrow's matches will be pretty difficult. It might be smart to use your tag partners, don't you think?"

"Maybe. I'm still thinking about that." Mathias answered. "After all, it's still early in the tournament. I'd hate if I needed to use it later but didn't have it anymore, you know?"

"For once I actually agree." Rita replied. "Orga's strong, but he's not the only strong opponent on the schedule. And my ribs have healed a lot already. I don't know what he'll end up doing, but I think I'll hold off and use mine later."

Hikaru just shrugged her shoulders. "Suit yourselves."

Things were almost identical with the Lamia Scale mages tonight to the way they were the previous night. Jura came in late after repairing the damages in the arena, and the mages enjoyed mostly casual conversation and some lighthearted jokes. Chelia was sitting in a chair at a table, bandages covering a lot of her as a result of her fierce battle with Erza earlier, as Lyon and Sheri both walked over to check on her.

"Another excellent match today, Chelia. That was quite impressive." Lyon said.

"Thanks, Lyon!" she replied with a cheerful smile. "Jura's advice really helped out a lot."

Sheri smiled and clasped her hands together in front of her.

"Guildmates helping one another to overcome incredible odds. That's love!~"

"Speaking of helping each other," Jura said as he walked over to the group, "what are your matches for tomorrow again?"

"Chelia has her bye tomorrow, and my opponent is Gajeel." Lyon answered.

"I see. In that case, Chelia, I suggest you use your time tomorrow to heal yourself and rest as much as you can. You'll have six more fights after tomorrow without any days off, and you'll want to be as close to a hundred percent as possible going into that."

The young God Slayer smiled again and nodded.

"I will. Thanks again for the help, Jura!"

He nodded before turning to Lyon again.

"As for you, be careful tomorrow, Lyon. Since you've already had your bye, this tournament will be stressful on you from here on out. Try to win early, and take as little damage as possible. Chelia can heal your injuries, but it'd be better if she could conserve as much magic energy for her fights as possible, so how healthy you can stay on your own will be a factor in determining how many points you score in this tournament."

Lyon nodded in response.

"If a quick win is what I need, I'll get it done. Gray may not be in this, but a win over his guild will be pretty nice." he said with a grin.

"You're certainly right to be confident. Just make sure you don't get carried away with it."

"Of course. But with Chelia fighting so hard, I'm determined to do everything I can on my end too."

"Good. I hope to see that determination out in the arena tomorrow, Lyon-dono."

"Wild..."

"FOUR!" came the familiar shouts from the Quatro Cerberus mages who were gathered at the bar of their inn, celebrating a successful day in the tournament. All had a mug of beer, except Blues and Kuro, of course, who had water instead. Blues had a wide grin on his face as he spoke.

"We might've had a bit of a bad start the first day, but I think we made up for it with the three points today."

"Damn right!" Rocker responded with a similar grin. "Even if you didn't win, Blues, Mathias is one of your toughest opponents in this thing, so getting the draw against him was pretty wild!"

Semmes then chimed in. "And you can't forget Bacchus beating the girl that took out Radioactive Decay's S-Class mage. That was wild too."

"FOUR!" they all shouted in unison again, as Bacchus chuckled and took a sip of his beer.

"Yeah, it was a good day today. And tomorrow's gonna be even better. Blues has the blood mage from Radioactive Decay, and I've got Milliana. They might as well just give us the points now and save us the trouble."

"Oi, Bacchus, I know Milliana and Tsuki might not exactly be favorites to win the Round Robin, but I still think we should be taking them as seriously as anyone else." Kuro said.

"Huh? What, ya don't think we can handle it?" Bacchus asked.

"Of course you can, and I'm sure you will. But we've already seen a few crazy upsets, mostly because of people underestimating their opponents. We all know we're the wildest guild around, but we should still try to stay focused, no matter who we're facing. That's all I'm saying."

"He's got a good point." Master Goldmine said as he walked in the room to join them. "The only thing certain about this tournament is that it's unpredictable. I doubt either of you will feel the need to use your tag partner tomorrow, but at least make sure you do what you what you have to, and be smart about it."

"Yeah yeah." Bacchus said, barely paying attention to his guild master's words as he continued to drink. "Nothin' to worry 'bout. We'll win both our fights. And it'll be..." he grinned once again before finishing the sentence "...wild."

"FOUR!"

A heavily bandaged Eve Tearm was resting in his room at Blue Pegasus' inn, while the other members were gathered in the main lobby.

"This tournament hasn't gone so well for Eve so far. Two days in and already this badly wounded. He's lucky he has his bye tomorrow or we might've had to think about withdrawing him from the whole thing." Hibiki said with a worried expression on his face.

"Hmph. The baka shouldn't have been so wreckless." Ren said, though he turned his head away immediately after as concern was evident in his face as well. "But still...I hope he's alright."

Jenny, who had a good amount of bandages wrapped around herself as well, let out a heavy sigh.

"Geez. I still have no idea why he picked me as his partner. He should've picked you, Ren. You actually have past experience fighting that Arania girl, not to mention you've teamed up with Eve before."

"Not to worry." Ichiya said, randomly striking a strange pose as sparkles appeared around him. "He has earned his rest, and will turn this around once he resumes his matches. In the meantime, I will carry the perfume of Blue Pegasus to victory! Men~"

"Of course, Ichiya-sensei." Hibiki said as he and Ren suddenly appeared behind Ichiya, each doing a pose of their own as their worried expressions were suddenly replaced by much more confident ones.

"As if there was ever any doubt." Rem responded, and a sweatdrop rolled down Jenny's head as she watched on.

Sting stood at the balcony of Sabertooth's large inn, looking out over the streets of Crocus as Lector sat next to him on the ledge.

"You know, this tournament would be way cooler if you were in it, Sting-kun."

The dragon slayer chuckled. "I wish I could be in it too. But since I'm the current guild master, I'm not eligible for this one. But still, I'm glad we can at least cheer Rogue and Orga on."

"And of course we appreciate it, Sting." Rogue said as he walked out and stood beside Sting on the balcony, with Frosch close behind.

"Heh. You kinda snuck up on me there. You're so quiet I didn't even hear you coming. How's Orga, by the way?"

"Still a bit frustrated that he lost, as you could probably guess, but he'll be ready for his fight tomorrow."

"Good. One loss won't be enough to stop us. We'll still win this thing."

Lector jumped up and emphatically threw his little paw up.

"With Sting-kun leading us, no one can stop Sabertooth!"

"Fro thinks so too!" the green exceed responded.

Rogue gave a faint smile and nod. "Though of course I can't underestimate my opponent. She defeated Gajeel, after all."

"Oh yeah. That girl from White Eclipse, right? Well, I'm sure you can take her."

Again he nodded, his face taking a more serious look now.

"Sting, what do you you think about what happened between Radioactive Decay and Mermaid Heel earlier?"

Sting sighed and scratched his head.

"I've been thinking about that too. It's a tricky situation. I know if something like that had happened to one of you guys, I'd be pretty tempted to do something reckless. It wouldn't be easy to just let it go. But at the same time, unsanctioned fighting between guilds never have good outcomes."

"Hm...I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens."

Sting nodded before smiling and patting Rogue on the shoulder.

"Lets try not to think too much about them, alright? For now, just get some rest so you'll be ready for tomorrow."

Again Rogue gave a small smile before nodding, then walked away as Frosch followed close behind. Sting then sighed as he leaned against the balcony again next to Lector, becoming lost in his thoughts as he resumed looking out over the streets of Crocus.

The White Eclipse mages all seemed to be in a good mood, as all of its mages were laughing and having a good time. The only one absent from the group was Reve, who had locked himself away in his room so he could mentally prepare for his fight with Erza tomorrow.

At a table in the lobby, Waiston Tunundra, White Eclipse's Ice Dragon Slayer, was having an arm wrestling contest with Cygnus Gwydion. Most of the other members had gathered around to watch and place bets, with both Cygnus and Waiston having roughly half the members betting on them. Everyone loudly cheered for the mage they bet on as neither seemed to budge the other for a while, until a sudden change in the gravity around their hands led to the back of Waiston's practically slamming through the table. Everyone who bet on Cygnus immediately cheered in celebration, while everyone else objected to the ending.

"Oi, he used magic! That's cheating!" Luke shouted, causing Takeru to chuckle and shake his head.

"You're just mad because you lost the bet. Now pay up." he said, holding out his hand as he waited for the Copy Mage to give him the money.

"Tch. Whatever." he said as he reluctantly handed the money over.

Among the slight bickering, Waiston was just as upset with the outcome as everyone who bet on him.

"You can't just use your Gravity Magic like that! I want a rematch!"

"Heh. Too bad. There's no rule against it." Cygnus replied with a smug grin.

"Waiston's right." Aira interjected, also frustrated after losing some money because of the contest. "Besides, I was going to use that money to go shopping later."

"Shouldn't you be more concerned about your match tomorrow anyway?" Cygnus asked.

"Well... Yeah, I guess so..." she said, pouting a bit.

Hearing the conversation, Luke turned to face the group.

"Who're you fighting again, Aira?"

"Rogue." she answered.

"Eh. I wouldn't worry about it. You already beat Gajeel. This guy won't be a problem."

"Well, I should still take him seriously. He's one of the reasons Sabertooth was the top guild for several years after all."

"Key word, 'was'. They lost their spot at the top. Now it's our turn to take that role."

Tayakata, who had been sitting off to the side, then decided to give some input.

"You're both right. We do want to show that we're the top guild, but stupid mistakes caused by arrogance won't help that. Aira's right to want to take her fight with Rogue seriously tomorrow."

Takeru then spoke again. "Speaking of taking fights seriously, Reve must really want to win this one if he's staying locked up in his room like this to prepare."

"Yeah, it's his obsession with Erza again. Though I was kind of expecting him to be down here rambling on all night about how he'd defeat Titania tomorrow." Luke said.

"It's good he's so determined. But still, I don't think he's eaten since we came back. I'll take some food up to him and see how he's doing." Taya said before standing up and walking away.

She prepared a small plate of food and went upstairs to his room and knocked on the door.

"Reve?"

A moment went by, but there was no answer. She tried turning the knob with her hand, but immediately found that the door was locked. A bit irritated now, she stood back before slamming her foot into the door, kicking it wide open, then walked inside.

"Reve, I brought you some-"

Her voice trailed off when she found the room was empty, and the window was open. Almost instantly knowing what had happened, she hurled the plate, which smashed into tiny pieces as it collided with the wall.

"Goddammit, Reve!"

The Fairy Tail Mages were gathered in the main lobby, just like the previous night. And once again, Natsu was complaining that Gajeel hadn't chosen to call on him as a tag partner during his fight earlier.

"Gajeel! Why didn't you listen to me and let me fight too?! That's two fights now you could've won if you just picked me as a partner, baka!"

"Oi, shut the hell up, Salamander! It's my decision when I use my partner! And ya know what, maybe I'll pick someone else just to piss you off!"

"What?! I'll kick your ass right now, Gajeel!"

"Now now, everyone," Mirajane said with her usual sweet smile, though there was a subtly threatening aura about her as she spoke, "lets not fight amongst ourselves. It'd be a shame if one or both of you had to spend the rest of the tournament in the hospital."

"...R-right..." both Dragon Slayers said simultaneously before dropping the issue.

On the other side of the room, Gray was speaking to Erza about her fight.

"Oi, you think you're ready for tomorrow, Erza?"

The scarlet haired mage nodded. "Reve is a tough opponent, no doubt. But I'm confident I can-"

She was interrupted by a sudden knock at the door.

Romeo went and opened the door, and looked up with wide eyes as he was surprised to see White Eclipse's Reve Volver standing there grinning down at him.

"Hey there, kid. How's it going? Don't mind if I come in, do you?" Not waiting for a response, the gunslinger ruffled Romeo's hair a bit before strolling inside.

"Oi, keep your hands off my son, Volver." Said Macao with an angry expression.

Reve chuckled and smirked, not even looking his way.

"Take it easy, old man. I'm just here for a friendly chat with Erza."

"Well I'm right here. Spit it out." Erza said as she walked up to Reve, stopping right in front of him.

"Just want to wish ya luck, and to say may the best mage win." he said, the grin never leaving his face as he spoke.

"You can stop that. We both know you wouldn't come here just for that."

"Heh. You shouldn't be so quick to judge a person's character, Scarlet. But you're right, nonetheless. I'm here to outright tell you that tomorrow, White Eclipse will defeat Fairy Tail for the SECOND time in this tournament, and prove we're superior."

"Do you think I care about being the 'number one' guild, Reve? I don't fight to prove superiority. I fight for the people I care about, my nakama. And I won't tolerate you talking down to them just for to feed your ego."

"If you've got a problem with me or anything I said," he leaned his face down closer to hers while he spoke, as if daring her to hit him, "then do something about it."

"Excuse me?" Erza said, raising an eyebrow at the man.

"You heard me. If you want me to pay for what I've said, why wait until tomorrow? In fact, lets step outside and settle this right now."

Not waiting for a response, Reve walked out the door and stood in the middle of the street, looking back at the inn.

"Well? I'm waiting."

While Erza debated what to do, Laxus couldn't help but chuckle.

"Well now, this certainly got interesting. I suggest you go teach him a lesson, Erza."

"I don't think that's a good idea." Levy replied, a look of concern on her face. "Just wait until tomorrow, Erza. There's no need to fight him right now."

Erza remained silent a moment longer, then walked out into the street, stopping several feet away from him. She then looked back toward the inn.

"Everyone, stay inside. I don't want any of you accidentally getting hurt." she said, before requipping a sword into her hand.

"Heh. Didn't think you'd actually have the guts to come out here. Well then, lets get this started." Reve said as he requipped a pistol in his right hand and aimed at Erza.

For what seemed like an eternity, the two stared each other down, neither moving a muscle. And right as each was about to make their move, a figure came falling from the sky, crashing into the ground between them, the impact creating a cloud of dust. Erza, Reve, and the Fairy Tail mages watched on in confusion as they waited to see who or what it was. When the dust cleared, a white haired man with a red scarf around his neck was seen standing about halfway between Erza and Reve. This was Sidney Castle, the SS-Class mage of White Eclipse. A surprised expression came over all the faces of the nearby mages, including Reve.

"Sidney? What the hell are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same, Reve." Sidney said as he glanced in the Guns Requip mage's direction. "Are you so eager to fight that you'd risk getting yourself, possibly even the whole guild disqualified from this tournament?"

"Oi, she agreed to this fight. Just let me kick her ass and I'll come right back to the inn."

"Yes, she did agree to fight. After you provoked her. Remember why we're here in the first place. It's not so you can go around picking fights whenever you want. It's for the 20 million jewel, and the guaranteed spot in next year's Grand Magic Games. And in case you hadn't noticed, there's already enough talk about potential guild wars breaking out without us contributing even more to the drama."

Reve sighed and let his gun disappear since it was clear Sidney had no intention of letting him finish this fight tonight.

"Fine, fine. I hear you." he said before looking at Erza again. "Today, tomorrow, it doesn't make a difference. Because White Eclipse is, and always will be, the best guild around. See ya tomorrow, Erza."

And with that, he put his hands in his pockets and began the walk back to White Eclipse's inn. Sidney took a brief glance at Erza and the Fairy Tail mages, then began walking back the same direction Reve went. Erza then gave a slight sigh and walked back into the inn, when Lucy walked over to her.

"Erza? Are you alright?"

She nodded before speaking.

"I refuse to let him defeat me. Tomorrow, I'll show him and everyone in White Eclipse what happens when you underestimate Fairy Tail."


	10. Chapter 10

Round Robin

Ch. 10

As the sun came up, the fans once again quickly filed into the arena for the third day of the tournament. While they made their way to their seats, Chapati and Yajima spoke from the announcers' booth.

"Welcome back, everyone! Day 3 is here, and a lot of interesting things have happened so far. Before we get to today's fights, lets talk about where everything stands as of now, and how we got here. Surprisingly, Chelia Blendy of Lamia Scale is currently leading Block A with three points, after that shocking upset win against White Eclipse's Reve Volver on Day 1, and the draw against Erza Scarlet from Fairy Tail the next day. However, that will most likely change since Chelia has a bye and will not be competing today. In Block B, Rogue Cheney of Sabertooth and Kagura Mikazuchi of Mermaid Heel are tied for the lead with four points each. Yajima-san, what do you think of the block leaders so far?"

"Hmm... I'm very impressed with Chelia. She's fought against two S-Class mages consecutively, and overcame tremendous odds to earn her points. As for Rogue and Kagura, I never had any doubt both would do very well in this tournament. Although I've noticed that Rogue still has yet to face an S-Class opponent. Kagura has already fought Lyon Vastia on Day 1, and will be taking on another S-Class mage today in Mathias Cronqvist, from Black Phoenix. I'm not saying I'm betting against Kagura, but with Rogue's opponent today being another mage that isn't an S-Class mage, I think this could potentially be a chance for Rogue to take the lead."

"Ah, you might be right. And speaking of Mermaid Heel, lets not forget that guild as a whole is still undefeated in the Round Robin. In fact, they're the only guild that hasn't lost a fight yet. As you said, though, Kagura will be fighting Black Phoenix's S-Class mage. In addition, Milliana will be taking on Bacchus from Quatro Cerberus. This will be Mermaid Heel's toughest challenge to this point, so it'll be interesting to see how they handle it. Now then-"

Chapati was interrupted by a knock on the door of the booth. The door then opened, and Lahar of the Magic Council smiled as he walked in and sat with the announcers.

"Ah! Our guest announcer for the day has arrived! Lets give a warm welcome to Lahar, Head Captain of the Council's Custody Enforcement Unit!" Chapati said.

"Thank you," Lahar responded, "and I apologize for being late."

"Oh, it's nothing to worry about." Yajima said. "Young officers such as yourself are always quite busy. And after the incident between Radioactive Decay and Mermaid Heel yesterday, it's good to know we'll have security here to stop things like that from happening in the future."

Lahar nodded. "Well, we can't be too careful. And with the council co-hosting this tournament, it wouldn't look good for us either if something like that happened again. So we'll do our best to ensure that the fans can enjoy the tournament without any further incident."

"Of course, and we all appreciate it." Chapati said. "Now then, lets take a look at today's fights. Milliana vs Bacchus, Orga vs Emerita, Blues vs Tsuki, Aira vs Rogue, Ichiya vs Minoru, Kagura vs Mathias, Lyon vs Gajeel, and of course Erza vs Reeve. Several interesting matchups, but which one stands out the most?"

Lahar was the first to answer. "You're right, there are several interesting ones. But I have to say Erza Scarlet vs Reve Volver. A rather strong rivalry has developed between the two guilds. And with this being the last guaranteed meeting between White Eclipse and Fairy Tail in the Round Robin, I don't doubt both will give it everything they have."

Yajima nodded in agreement. "Indeed, that's the matchup everyone seems to be talking about. And that's a very good point about this being the final meeting between them. This could very well turn out to be the most memorable match of the entire tournament."

"Well there you have it folks! It seems the guilds have all arrived in the arena as well, so- Wait, what's this?"

Down in the arena, Minoru Kanemoto and Kagura Mikazuchi had walked out to the center, and now stood face to face. Lahar and all the other Council guards in attendance were immediately preparing themselves to intervene if a fight broke out. However, the two mages simultaneously gave a respectful bow to the other before silently turning around and walking back to their guilds' sections. The audience applauded, relieved that the issues between the guild seemed to have been resolved. As Minoru reached his guildmates, Avani noticed he seemed more tense than usual, and put a hand on his shoulder.

"What's wrong, Minoru?"

Minoru glanced back over his shoulder, looking at the guards stationed throughout the arena before replying.

"They're everywhere..."

Avani gave a warm smile before placing a light kiss on Minoru's cheek.

"You're just here for the tournament like everyone else. Try not to let it bother you too much, alright?"

Turning his head to face her, he tried to relax as he gave a slight smile and nodded.

"I'm not sure what happened since yesterday, but it appears Mermaid Heel and Radioactive Decay have come to some sort of truce." Chapati commented. "And now that that's taken care of, lets get today's matches started!"

Mato went out to the center of the arena, microphone in hand.

"Ladies and gentlemen! It is time to begin the matches for Day 3 of the Round Robin, kabo! Our first bout will be between Bacchus of Quatro Cerberus, and Milliana of Mermaid Heel! Would both mages please make their way out now, kabo!"

"Easy win, Bacchus! You got this!" Rocker shouted.

Bacchus grinned before replying. "Of course I do. Wild..."

"FOUR!" his guildmates shouted in unison, and Bacchus made his way out to the center of the arena, carrying his gourd in his hand.

Milliana was clearly nervous, and just before she started walking, Kagura placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Remember, Milliana, he may be strong, but he's also reckless. Be smart about how you fight him, and you can win."

A bright smile came over Milliana's face, and she felt much more confident after hearing Kagura's words.

"Thanks, Kagura-chan! I won't let you down!"

Kagura's expression remained stoic as usual as she nodded, and Milliana jogged out into the arena, where Bacchus was already waiting.

"Are both fighters ready, kabo?" Mato asked, looking to both mages.

"Damn right I am." Bacchus answered before speaking to Milliana. "And don't think I'll go easy on ya just because you're one of one of Mermaid Heel's ladies."

"I won't hold back either." Milliana replied with a confident grin. "I'm feeling spiffy, and I plan on winning this for Mermaid Heel!"

Bacchus just laughed at the comment.

"Well that ain't gonna happen, but I like the confidence. Now then, try to make this as wild as ya can." he said as he crouched into his signature fighting stance.

Mato took one last glance at both mages before raising his hand and shouting, "Begin!", and the gong rang out immediately after.

Milliana was the first to act, removing her cloak and throwing it right at Bacchus to try to distract him, then quickly threw off her gloves, revealing her sharp nails as she lunged forward and swiped at him. Bacchus merely smirked, however and leaned to the side as the cloak flew by him, never taking his eyes off his opponent. As she repeatedly slashed at him, Bacchus expertly avoided each attack with ease, before eventually smacking one of her wrists away as her hand approached, then stepping forward and slamming a palm strike directly in the center of Milliana's stomach, knocking her back several feet as Bacchus crouched into his stance again.

"Wild..."

"FOUR!" the Quatro Cerberus mages shouted from their section.

Milliana grunted in frustration as she stood back up, then held out a hand, pointing her palm toward Bacchus.

"Nekosoku Tube!"

A pink magic circle opened in front of her palm, releasing a magic rope which launched toward Bacchus. And as it approached, he chuckled and swayed to the side to avoid it, then took off in a sprint toward Milliana. Seeing her opponent quickly approaching, the Mermaid Heel mage sent more ropes from the magic circle, hoping at least one of them would find their target. However, Bacchus was too quick, and avoided each of them as he moved. When he was close, another tube came from the magic circle, and was mere inches from his head when he dove to the side, narrowly avoiding it as well. He immediately sprung up and sent another magic palm strike into Milliana's stomach, again knocking her back.

"Oi, what's wrong? Weren't ya gonna beat me? Or are ya not feelin' so 'spiffy' anymore?" Bacchus said with a grin.

Milliana grit her teeth as she stood up again, her frustration continued to build.

"Shut up! I'm just getting started!"

She then waited for a moment to plan her next move, then started running in a circle around Bacchus, firing another magic rope at him every few seconds.

"Hm? Tryin to keep your distance, are ya? Heh. Not gonna work!" Bacchus said with a smug grin, before running toward her, again dodging the ropes as they came at him. When he got close, he reared his right hand back, preparing another palm strike. But as he did so, one of the ropes he had dodged snaked back and wrapped around his wrist.

"Tch. Like this is gonna stop me!" he said as he swung the palm of his free hand into the tube. But to his surprise, nothing happened, as he realized he couldn't bring his magic energy into his palm.

"Oi, what the hell...? This thing cancels out magic too?" he said to himself. And while he was in his train of thought, another tube wrapped around his right ankle. And when he snapped his head around to take a look, another wrapped around his free wrist, and yet another around his other ankle.

"Dammit!" Bacchus shouted, frustrated with himself for getting caught like this. Milliana now smirked and ran toward Bacchus, then jumped and slid all around him, twisting the ropes until they had Bacchus down on the ground, with his arms and legs tied up in an awkward fashion, keeping him from moving.

The Quatro Cerberus mages were now panicking as they saw their S-Class mage in a bad situation.

"Come on, Bacchus! Hang in there!" Blues shouted.

"Over in Mermaid Heel's section, everyone was loudly cheering for their teammate. Despite what she'd said earlier, Kagura had guessed that at best Milliana might be able to get another draw with the time limit expiring. But now she seemed to have a golden opportunity at an upset victory.

"YOU'VE GOT HIM RIGHT WHERE YOU WANT HIM! FINISH IT, MILLIANA!" Kagura shouted out.

"Right!" Milliana nodded, then leaped high into the air and cupped her hands together, pointing them down at Bacchus.

"Kitten Blast!"

Again the magic circle opened, and another magic rope, glowing and much larger than the previous ones launched at Bacchus, who was still struggling to try to free himself from the ropes that had bound his limbs.

"Sh-shit!"

Unable to avoid it, Milliana's attack hit with full force, causing a small cloud of dust to appear around Bacchus' body. When Milliana landed, she took a moment to catch her breath, and waited in anticipation along with everyone else watching to see if she had won.

"Did Milliana just defeat Bacchus?" Erza said as she watched on from Fairy Tail's section, a slight look of disbelief on her face.

"Oh?! We might have another upset over here!" Sting said with an excited grin as he watched with the other Sabertooth mages.

When the dust cloud started to die down, Milliana's eyes widened as Bacchus was seen standing there with a smirk, the tubes no longer around his arms or legs, and he was holding his gourd in his right hand.

"Tch. I thought she had it..." Kagura said with a slight grimmace.

"Man, that was a close call." Kuro said, sighing in relief.

Back in the arena, Bacchus continued to grin as he spoke.

"Gotta admit, I didn't think ya'd be able to pull somethin' like that. If that attack of yours had been a bit stronger, it might've actually gotten the job done instead of just cuttin' the ropes for me. But I think it's about time I ended this."

"Milliana! Don't let him drink from that gourd!" Kagura shouted, but it was too late. Before Milliana could even think about trying to prevent it, Bacchus had already lifted the gourd to his mouth and taken a drink. He then set it down before crouching into his stance once again, swaying slightly as he did so. Knowing what Bacchus was going to do next, Kagura again shouted in an attempt to alert her guildmate.

"Watch yourself! Get out of his way!"

Milliana attempted to brace herself so she could react once Bacchus moved. However, in the blink of an eye, he shot right past her, with seven bright blue marks emanating from her torso, where Bacchus' magic palm strikes had hit almost simultaneously. The pain of taking so many attacks at once being too much for her, Milliana merely gave a slight gasp, before falling unconscious to the ground as Mato ran over to check on her.

"Milliana is down, kabo! Bacchus wins!"

"Wild! Bacchus shouted as he threw his fist into the air."

"FOUR!" came the usual reply from the other Quatro Cerberus mages.

When Bacchus made it back to his guildmates, Yaegar smacked a hand on Bacchus' shoulder.

"Wild fight, Bacchus!"

"Yeah, you almost gave me a heart attack." Master Goldmine said with a chuckle.

"Heh. I got the points, and that's what counts. And once Blues wins his fight, we'll head back to the in and celebrate a second consecutive day with no losses. Sound wild to you guys?" he said with a smirk as he looked at the others. The response was unanimous as they all grinned and threw their fists into the air*

"FOUR!"

As Milliana regained consciousness, she noticed someone was helping her back to Mermaid Heel's section, and glanced over to see that it was Kagura.

"Sorry..." she said, looking down with a sad expression on her face.

"Don't be." she said, her face as expressionless as usual. "You may not've won today, but you put up a great fight against an opponent many thought you wouldn't stand a chance against. You should be proud of that."

A small smile appeared on Milliana's face as she gave a slight nod.

"Thanks, Kagura-chan."

"And with that win, Bacchus now has four points, passing Chelia Blendy for first place in Block A, though that could change soon depending on how the rest of the fights go." Chapati commented.

"Yes, and is also means Mermaid Heel is no longer undefeated," Lahar added, "though Milliana certainly put up a good fight."

Yajima nodded in agreement. "Indeed. And going back to Chapati's comment, I believe our next fight is one of those that might have an impact on the first place standing in Block A, correct?"

"That's right, Yajima-san. Orga vs Rita. Each of them have a win and a loss so far, but a win today would put either of them at four points, tying them with Bacchus for first place."

Lahar nodded. "Every point counts, and once you fall in the rankings, it can be very hard to climb back to the top. This will be an important fight for both mages."

"Very true." Chapati replied. "And I believe it's time for that fight to start, so lets see how it turns out."

"We will now start the second match, kabo!" Mato announced. "Orga Nanagear of Sabertooth and Emerita Megido of Black Phoenix, please step forward!"

Rita and Orga both strode out into the arena, stoping several feet in front of each other, with determined expressions on their faces.

"Eh? She's so tiny compared to him." Sting commented.

Rufus chuckled before replying. "True. However, she has already demonstrated that size is an obstacle she can overcome. I'm sure Orga is more than capable of easily defeating his opponent, of course. But size will not be a factor in the outcome, as difficult as that might be to believe."

"Hmm... Well, if you say so." Sting said with a shrug.

"Kick his ass, Rita!" shouted Mizaki from Black Phoenix's section.

"You can take him, no problem!" added Trace Varsuna, the brother of Master Anri, who then chimed in as well.

"You better not lose, you lil shit! HHHHHRRRRAAAAAGGGGGAAAAHHHHH!"

Mato looked to both mages and asked. "Are you ready, kabo?"

Orga immediately nodded. Rita took a moment to consider using her tag partner now, but decided against it, and nodded as well.

"Very well! Begin!" Mato said, raising his hand as the gong sounded.

Rita wasted no time, immediately sprinting toward the God Slayer. Orga raised an eyebrow, finding it curious that she would charge at him head on like this, and simply waited to see what she'd do. When she was close, she leapt into the air, and flipped forward, slamming her right leg down with an axe kick aimed directly at Orga's head. However, Orga could tell what was coming, and put his forearm up, allowing it to take the force of the kick. But to his surprise, he felt a considerable amount of pain from the kick, though, he didn't allow any sign of it to show. The god slayer then swung his arm back, sending Rita back through the air, though she simply flipped and landed right on her feet.

"Tch. This one's a lot stronger than she looks." Orga muttered to himself. "But if she wants to try hand to hand combat, fine by me."

Engulfing his body in lightning, Orga then dashed at Rita with blinding speed. But while Rita might not've been as fast as Orga, she was definitely smarter, and predicted in her mind exactly what he would do. As Orga closed in, Rita effortlessly avoided a lightning-covered fist by simply jumping to the side. Orga immediately redirected and came back with another strike, which Rita again dodged in a similar manner. Orga grunted in frustration before unleashing a barrage of attacks this time, but he was still unable to land a hit on Rita. Right as the final punch missed, Rita took out her scroll, then ducked down and quickly spun around, slamming her scroll into the back of his knee, causing his leg to buckle as he fell to a knee.

"What the hell? That's no ordinary scroll..." he said to himself.

Seeing an opening, Rita then lunged forward to attack, but was suddenly met with large lightning-covered fist right in her face, launching her back several feet.

"Heh. That's more like it." Orga said with a slight grin as he stood back up.

Rita quickly picked herself back up too and dusted herself off.

"Took you long enough to land a hit."

Orga's grin was suddenly replaced by a more annoyed expression. "What was that?'

"You heard me. Geez, I figured you'd be all bulk and no brain, but you're really going out of your way to prove me right."

"Alright then. We'll see if you're still running your mouth after I put you in the infirmary for the rest of this tournament."

"As if you could." Rita replied, rolling her eyes.

The annoyed God Slayer cupped his hands together, with his right hand hovering slightly over the left, and a small ball of black lightning began to form. Knowing what was coming, Rita began to recite one of her scroll's incantations.

"O' flickering flame of eternity, burn bright!..."

As she spoke, Orga began to announce the name of his own attack.

"120 mm Black Lightning...!"

"Fireball!"

"Canon!"

Rita launched her fireball at the same time that Orga's lightning canon fired, and the two attacks collided halfway between the two mages, creating a large explosion. As the smoke cleared, Orga waited to see what Rita was doing, and was somewhat to surprised to see she was reciting another incantation already.

"O' disturbing power now unleashed, meet thy judgement upon the evil before me! Violent Pain!"

Unbeknownst to Orga, his shadow had now come under Rita's control, and vectors began to shoot out of it, stabbing into his back, as well as his arms and legs, drawing a sudden shout of pain from the God Slayer. Orga then glared at Rita and spoke through grit teeth.

"You think something like this can stop me?! You shouldn't underestimate Sabertooth!"

He then engulfed his body in lightning once again, using the bright light to dispel the shadow and freeing him from Rita's spell.

"You don't know when to quit, do you?" asked a clearly agitated Rita, who then began to recite another spell. Orga, however, wasn't about to let that happen, and immediately held his right arm out, aiming his palm toward her. A large sphere of black lightning quickly formed around Rita before she had any time to react. For several seconds, agonized screams could be heard coming from the inside of the sphere as Rita was electrocuted. When the spell finally died down, Rita fell to the ground as Mato went to check on her. Orga fell to a knee and grinned as he started panting.

"Heh... She was tough, but not tough enough..."

But his eyes suddenly widened in surprise as he saw Rita slowly starting to stand up again.

"What?! Impossible!"

"You shouldn't underestimate me, saber..." Rita said with a grin, doing her best to block out the pain she was in.

Orga forced himself back up to his feet, and both knew that they'd have to hurry if they wanted to end this before the time limit was reached. So Orga cupped his hands together once again, charging his black lightning between his hands. Rita began another incantation.

"O' power that lies in the root of all creation, o' memory inscribed in ages past, hear my call and arise before me...!"

By now Orga's lightning had charged to its fullest potential, as he shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Lightning God's Charge Particle Cannon!"

Right as he spoke, Rita launched her attack as well.

"Ancient Catastrophe!" she shouted creating seven orbs of various elements which rushed right toward the God Slayer as he launched his own attack.

The two destructive techniques collided, creating powerful shockwave that blasted both Rita and Orga back several feet, and the two mages both fell unconscious as they landed flat on their backs.

"...Both mages are down, kabo! This match ends in a draw!"

The crowd gave a standing ovation for both mages as the exciting match came to an end, and several of the others from Sabertooth and Black Phoenix came out to assist their respective guildmates.

"Are you alright?" asked a concerned Lucina, who was kneeling by her former teacher, with many of the other members gathering around as well.

"Wh...what...?" Rita said as she slowly opened her eyes and saw Lucina. "...Did I win?"

Lucina shook her head. "It was a draw. But you did great!"

"She's right, Rita." Chisio said. "That was an amazing fight!"

Rita sighed and rubbed her head in slight frustration.

"Well, I guess one point's still better than nothing."

Master Anri then walked forward, and began poking Rita with a stick. Rita looked at her guild master awkwardly for a moment before finally asking.

"...What are you doing, Anri?"

"Making sure you're not dead or something? Meh. I don't know. Just felt like doing it."

"Well I'm obviously alive, so would you please stop that?" Rita replied, a bit annoyed by her master's oddball antics even though she had gotten used to them fairly quickly after she'd joined the guild.

Anri didn't give an immediate response, and a portal suddenly opened above Rita, sucking her inside before closing.

"Master! What was that for?!" Lucing asked.

"Relax. I just sent her to the infirmary. It was quicker than carrying her. She needs her rest anyway." the guild master replied before walking back to her guild's section. The other members all just shrugged in unison before following her back.

Orga sat up and grunted as he rubbed his aching head, then noticed the other Sabertooth mages had gathered, and Sting was offering a hand to help him up.

"Nice job, Orga. Another great fight."

The God Slayer took Sting's hand and stood back up.

"Thanks. Sorry I didn't get the win. I'll make sure to do better next time."

"I'm sure you'll be just fine, Orga-sama." Yukino said with a slight smile.

"Of course. Oh, and Yukino. I need to talk to you about something after we leave the arena." Orga replied.

Yukino blinked, a little surprised and unsure of what he was talking about.

"A-alright, Orga-sama..."

"Well, lets not stand around all day. There's still more fights to come." Sting said.

The rest nodded, and the Sabertooth mages each made their way back to their section.

Once the arena was clear, the announcers began to comment.

"That was an amazing match between two very talented mages! And that draw puts both Rita and Orga at three points, tying them with Chelia Blendy for second place in Block A, which means for the moment Bacchus is still in first place for that block after his victory against Milliana in our opening match today." Chapati said.

"Indeed...though Ichiya and Reve each will have a chance to tie for the lead spot in the block later as well." Yajima replied.

"Very true." Lahar added. "and as we talked about earlier, I think Reve's fight against Erza later will be particularly interesting to watch."

Chapati nodded in agreement.

"Yes, that match could have a big impact on the rankings, not to mention the heated feud between Fairy Tail and White Eclipse."

"And lets not forget the fact that this will be the last time the two guilds face each other in the Round Robin. Aira defeated Gajeel yesterday, and you know Fairy Tail will want to even the score." Yajima added.

"Ah, that's a good point, Yajima-san." Chapati said. "Many fights to come, and each win is starting to matter more and more as the mages continue through the Round Robin. Who will continue to climb through the rankings, and who will be left behind? Stay tuned to find out!"


End file.
